disjointedly.
The girl had risen.—“And you’ll forgive me for marrying such a man?”
“Won’t I?” said Mr. Twiggs, with a rapturous twinkle.
As he spoke, she flung her arms about his neck and pressed her lips
close, close against his cheek, her own glad face now fronting the little
window.... She heard the clicking of the latch, the opening of the door,
and the step of the intruder ere she loosed her hold.
“God bless you, Pop’m, and forgive me!—This is my husband.”
The newcomer, Mr. Stanley, reached and grasped the hand of Mr. Twiggs,
eagerly, fervidly, albeit the face he looked on then will haunt him to
the hour of his death.—Yet haply, some day, when the Master takes the
selfsame hand within his own and whispers, “Tude’s come home,” the old
smile will return.
DOLORES
Lithe-armed, and with satin-soft shoulders
As white as the cream-crested wave;
With a gaze dazing every beholder’s,
She holds every gazer a slave:
Her hair, a fair haze, is outfloated
And flared in the air like a flame;
Bare-breasted, bare-browed and bare-throated—
Too smooth for the soothliest name.
She wiles you with wine, and wrings for you
Ripe juices of citron and grape;
She lifts up her lute and sings for you
Till the soul of you seeks no escape;
And you revel and reel with mad laughter,
And fall at her feet, at her beck,
And the scar of her sandal thereafter
You wear like a gyve round your neck.
WHEN I DO MOCK
When I do mock the blackness of the night
With my despair—outweep the very dews
And wash my wan cheeks stark of all delight,
Denying every counsel of dear use
In mine embittered state; with infinite
Perversity, mine eyes drink in no sight
Of pleasance that nor moon nor stars refuse
In silver largess and gold twinklings bright;—
I question me what mannered brain is mine
That it doth trick me of the very food
It panteth for—the very meat and wine
That yet should plump my starved soul with good
And comfortable plethora of ease,
That I might drowse away such rhymes as these.
MY MARY
My Mary, O my Mary!
The simmer skies are blue:
The dawnin’ brings the dazzle,
An’ the gloamin’ brings the dew,—
The mirk o’ nicht the glory
O’ the moon, an’ kindles, too,
The stars that shift aboon the lift.—
But naething brings me you!
Where is it, O my Mary,
Ye are biding a’ the while?
I ha’ wended by your window—
I ha’ waited by the stile,
An’ up an’ down the river
I ha’ won for mony a mile,
Yet never found, adrift or drown’d,
Your lang-belated smile.
Is it forgot, my Mary,
How glad we used to be?—
The simmer-time when bonny bloomed
The auld trysting-tree,—
How there I carved the name for you,
An’ you the name for me;
An’ the gloamin’ kenned it only
When we kissed sae tenderly.
Speek ance to me, my Mary!—
But whisper in my ear
As light as ony sleeper’s breath,
An’ a’ my soul will hear;
My heart shall stap its beating,
An’ the soughing atmosphere
Be hushed the while I leaning smile
An’ listen to you, dear!
My Mary, O my Mary!
The blossoms bring the bees;
The sunshine brings the blossoms,
An’ the leaves on a’ the trees;
The simmer brings the sunshine
An’ the fragrance o’ the breeze,—
But O wi’out you, Mary,
I care naething for these!
We were sae happy, Mary!
O think how ance we said—
Wad ane o’ us gae fickle,
Or are o’ us lie dead,—
To feel anither’s kisses
We wad feign the auld instead,
An’ ken the ither’s footsteps
In the green grass owerhead.
My Mary, O my Mary!
Are ye dochter o’ the air,
That ye vanish aye before me
As I follow everywhere?—
Or is it ye are only
But a mortal, wan wi’ care,
Sin’ I search through a’ the kirkyird
An’ I dinna find ye there?
_EROS_
_The storm of love has burst at last_
_Full on me: All the world, before,_
_Was like an alien, unknown shore_
_Along whose verge I laughing passed.—_
_But now—I laugh not any more,—_
_Bowed with a silence vast in weight_
_As that which falls on one who stands_
_For the first time on ocean sands,_
_Seeing and feeling all the great_
_Awe of the waves as they wash the lands_
_And billow and wallow and undulate._
ORLIE WILDE
A goddess, with a siren’s grace,—
A sun-haired girl on a craggy place
Above a bay where fish-boats lay
Drifting about like birds of prey.
Wrought was she of a painter’s dream,—
Wise only as are artists wise,
My artist-friend, Rolf Herschkelhiem,
With deep sad eyes of oversize,
And face of melancholy guise.
I pressed him that he tell to me
This masterpiece’s history.
He turned—_re_turned—and thus beguiled
Me with the tale of Orlie Wilde:—
“We artists live ideally:
We breed our firmest facts of air;
We make our own reality—
We dream a thing and it is so.
The fairest scenes we ever see
Are mirages of memory;
The sweetest thoughts we ever know
We plagiarize from Long Ago:
And as the girl on canvas there
Is marvellously rare and fair,
’Tis only inasmuch as she
Is dumb and may not speak to me!”
He tapped me with his mahlstick—then
The picture,—and went on again:
“Orlie Wilde, the fisher’s child—
I see her yet, as fair and mild
As ever nursling summer day
Dreamed on the bosom of the bay:
For I was twenty then, and went
Alone and long-haired—all content
With promises of sounding name
And fantasies of future fame,
And thoughts that now my mind discards
As editor a fledgling bard’s.
“At evening once I chanced to go,
With pencil and portfolio,
Adown the street of silver sand
That winds beneath this craggy land,
To make a sketch of some old scurf
Of driftage, nosing through the surf
A splintered mast, with knarl and strand
Of rigging-rope and tattered threads
Of flag and streamer and of sail
That fluttered idly in the gale
Or whipped themselves to sadder shreds.
The while I wrought, half listlessly,
On my dismantled subject, came
A sea-bird, settling on the same
With plaintive moan, as though that he
Had lost his mate upon the sea;
And—with my melancholy trend—
It brought dim dreams half understood—
It wrought upon my morbid mood,—
I thought of my own voyagings
That had no end—that have no end.—
And, like the sea-bird, I made moan
That I was loveless and alone.
And when at last with weary wings
It went upon its wanderings,
With upturned face I watched its flight
Until this picture met my sight:
A goddess, with a siren’s grace,—
A sun-haired girl on a craggy place
Above a bay where fish-boats lay
Drifting about like birds of prey.
“In airy poise she, gazing, stood
A matchless form of womanhood,
That brought a thought that if for me
Such eyes had sought across the sea,
I could have swum the widest tide
That ever mariner defied,
And, at the shore, could on have gone
To that high crag she stood upon,
To there entreat and say, ‘My Sweet,
Behold thy servant at thy feet.’
And to my soul I said: ‘Above,
There stands the idol of thy love!’
“In this rapt, awed, ecstatic state
I gazed—till lo! I was aware
A fisherman had joined her there—
A weary man, with halting gait,
Who toiled beneath a basket’s weight:
Her father, as I guessed, for she
Had run to meet him gleefully
And ta’en his burden to herself,
That perched upon her shoulder’s shelf
So lightly that she, tripping, neared
A jutting crag and disappeared;
But left the echo of a song
That thrills me yet, and will as long
As I have being!...
... “Evenings came
And went,—but each the same—the same:
She watched above, and even so
I stood there watching from below;
Till, grown so bold at last, I sung,—
(What matter now the theme thereof!)—
It brought an answer from her tongue—
Faint as the murmur of a dove,
Yet all the more the song of love....
“I turned and looked upon the bay,
With palm to forehead—eyes a-blur
In the sea’s smile—meant but for her!—
I saw the fish-boats far away
In misty distance, lightly drawn
In chalk-dots on the horizon—
Looked back at her, long, wistfully,—
And, pushing off an empty skiff,
I beckoned her to quit the cliff
And yield me her rare company
Upon a little pleasure-cruise.—
She stood, as loathful to refuse,
To muse for full a moment’s time,—
Then answered back in pantomime
‘She feared some danger from the sea
Were she discovered thus with me.’
I motioned then to ask her if
I might not join her on the cliff;
And back again, with graceful wave
Of lifted arm, she answer gave
‘She feared some danger from the sea.’
“Impatient, piqued, impetuous, I
Sprang in the boat, and flung ‘Good-bye’
From pouted mouth with angry hand,
And madly pulled away from land
With lusty stroke, despite that she
Held out her hands entreatingly:
And when far out, with covert eye
I shoreward glanced, I saw her fly
In reckless haste adown the crag,
Her hair a-flutter like a flag
Of gold that danced across the strand
In little mists of silver sand.
All curious I, pausing, tried
To fancy what it all implied,—
When suddenly I found my feet
Were wet; and, underneath the seat
On which I sat, I heard the sound
Of gurgling waters, and I found
The boat aleak alarmingly....
I turned and looked upon the sea,
Whose every wave seemed mocking me;
I saw the fishers’ sails once more—
In dimmer distance than before;
I saw the sea-bird wheeling by,
With foolish wish that _I_ could fly:
I thought of firm earth, home and friends—
I thought of everything that tends
To drive a man to frenzy and
To wholly lose his own command;
I thought of all my waywardness—
Thought of a mother’s deep distress;
Of youthful follies yet unpurged—
Sins, as the seas, about me surged—
Thought of the printer’s ready pen
To-morrow drowning me again;—
A million things without a name—
I thought of everything but—Fame....
“A memory yet is in my mind,
So keenly clear and sharp-defined,
I picture every phase and line
Of life and death, and neither mine,—
While some fair seraph, golden-haired,
Bends over me,—with white arms bared,
That strongly plait themselves about
My drowning weight and lift me out—
With joy too great for words to state
Or tongue to dare articulate!
“And this seraphic ocean-child
And heroine was Orlie Wilde:
And thus it was I came to hear
Her voice’s music in my ear—
Ay, thus it was Fate paved the way
That I walk desolate to-day!” ...
The artist paused and bowed his face
Within his palms a little space,
While reverently on his form
I bent my gaze and marked a storm
That shook his frame as wrathfully
As some typhoon of agony,
And fraught with sobs—the more profound
For that peculiar laughing sound
We hear when strong men weep.... I leant
With warmest sympathy—I bent
To stroke with soothing hand his brow,
He murmuring—“’Tis over now!—
And shall I tie the silken thread
Of my frail romance?” “Yes,” I said.—
He faintly smiled; and then, with brow
In kneading palm, as one in dread—
His tasselled cap pushed from his head;—
“‘Her voice’s music,’ I repeat,”
He said,—“’twas sweet—O passing sweet!—
Though she herself, in uttering
Its melody, proved not the thing
Of loveliness my dreams made meet
For me—there, yearning, at her feet—
Prone at her feet—a worshipper,—
For lo! she spake a tongue,” moaned he,
“Unknown to me;—unknown to me
As mine to her—as mine to her.”
LEONAINIE
Leonainie—Angels named her;
And they took the light
Of the laughing stars and framed her
In a smile of white;
And they made her hair of gloomy
Midnight, and her eyes of bloomy
Moonshine, and they brought her to me
In the solemn night.—
In a solemn night of summer,
When my heart of gloom
Blossomed up to greet the comer
Like a rose in bloom;
All forebodings that distressed me
I forgot as Joy caressed me—
(_Lying_ Joy! that caught and pressed me
In the arms of doom!)
Only spake the little lisper
In the Angel-tongue;
Yet I, listening, heard her whisper,—
“Songs are only sung
Here below that they may grieve you—
Tales but told you to deceive you,—
So must Leonainie leave you
While her love is young.”
Then God smiled and it was morning.
Matchless and supreme
Heaven’s glory seemed adorning
Earth with its esteem:
Every heart but mine seemed gifted
With the voice of prayer, and lifted
Where my Leonainie drifted
From me like a dream.
TO A JILTED SWAIN
Get thee back neglected friends;
And repay, as each one lends,
Tithes of shallow-sounding glee
Or keen-ringing raillery:
Get thee from lone vigils; be
But in jocund company,
Where is laughter and acclaim
Boisterous above the name.—
Get where sulking husbands sip
Ale-house cheer, with pipe at lip;
And where Mol the barmaid saith
Curst is she that marrieth.
THE VOICES
Down in the night I hear them:
The Voices—unknown—unguessed,—
That whisper, and lisp, and murmur,
And will not let me rest.—
Voices that seem to question,
In unknown words, of me,
Of fabulous ventures, and hopes and dreams
Of this and the World to be.
Voices of mirth and music,
As in sumptuous homes; and sounds
Of mourning, as of gathering friends
In country burial-grounds.
Cadence of maiden voices—
Their lovers’ blent with these;
And of little children singing,
As under orchard trees.
And often, up from the chaos
Of my deepest dreams, I hear
Sounds of their phantom laughter
Filling the atmosphere:
They call to me from the darkness;
They cry to me from the gloom,
Till I start sometimes from my pillow
And peer through the haunted room;
When the face of the moon at the window
Wears a pallor like my own,
And seems to be listening with me
To the low, mysterious tone,—
The low, mysterious clamor
Of voices that seem to be
Striving in vain to whisper
Of secret things to me;—
Of a something dread to be warned of;
Of a rapture yet withheld;
Or hints of the marvellous beauty
Of songs unsyllabled.
But ever and ever the meaning
Falters and fails and dies,
And only the silence quavers
With the sorrow of my sighs.
And I answer:—O Voices, ye may not
Make me to understand
Till my own voice, mingling with you,
Laughs in the Shadow-land.
_A BAREFOOT BOY_
_A barefoot boy! I mark him at his play—_
_For May is here once more, and so is he,—_
_His dusty trousers, rolled half to the knee,_
_And his bare ankles grimy, too, as they:_
_Cross-hatchings of the nettle, in array_
_Of feverish stripes, hint vividly to me_
_Of woody pathways winding endlessly_
_Along the creek, where even yesterday_
_He plunged his shrinking body—gasped and shook—_
_Yet called the water “warm,” with never lack_
_Of joy. And so, half enviously I look_
_Upon this graceless barefoot and his track,—_
_His toe stubbed—ay, his big toe-nail knocked back_
_Like unto the clasp of an old pocket-book._
THE YOUTHFUL PATRIOT
O what did the little boy do
’At nobody wanted him to?
Didn’t do nothin’ but romp an’ run,
An’ whoop an’ holler an’ bang his gun
An’ bu’st fire-crackers, an’ ist have fun—
An’ _’at’s_ all the little boy done!
PONCHUS PILUT
Ponchus Pilut _ust_ to be
Ist a _Slave_, an’ now he’s _free_.
Slaves wuz on’y ist before
The War wuz—an’ _ain’t_ no more.
He works on our place fer us,—
An’ comes here—_sometimes_ he does.
He shocks corn an’ shucks it.—An’
He makes hominy “by han’!”—
Wunst he bringed us some, one trip,
Tied up in a piller-slip:
Pa says, when Ma cooked it, “MY!
This-here’s gooder’n you _buy_!”
Ponchus _pats_ fer me an’ sings;
An’ he says _funny_ things!
Ponchus calls a dish a “_deesh_”—
Yes, an’ _he_ calls fishes “_feesh_”!
When Ma want him eat wiv us
He says, “’Skuse me—’deed you mus’!—
Ponchus know’ good manners, Miss.—
He ain’ eat wher’ White-folks is!”
’Lindy takes _his_ dinner out
Wher’ he’s workin’—roun’ about.—
Wunst he et his dinner spread
In our ole wheelborry-bed.
_Ponchus Pilut_ says “_’at’s_ not
His _right_ name,—an’ done fergot
What his _sho’-’nuff_ name is now—
An’ don’ matter none _no_how!”
Yes, an’ Ponchus he’ps Pa, too,
When our _butcherin’s_ to do,
An’ scalds hogs—an’ says, “Take care
’Bout it, er you’ll _set the hair_!”
Yes, an’ out in our back-yard
He he’ps ’Lindy rendur lard;
An’, wite in the fire there, he
Roast’ a pigtail wunst fer me.—
An’ ist nen th’ole tavurn-bell
Rung, down-town, an’ he says, “Well!—
Hear dat! _Lan’ o’ Caanan_, Son,
Ain’t dat bell say ‘_Pigtail done!_’
—‘_Pigtail done!_
_Go call Son!—_
_Tell dat_
_Chile dat_
_Pigtail done!_’”
A TWINTORETTE
Ho! my little maiden
With the glossy tresses,
Come thou and dance with me
A measure all divine;
Let my breast be laden
With but thy caresses—
Come thou and glancingly
Mate thy face with mine.
Thou shalt trill a rondel,
While my lips are purling
Some dainty twitterings
Sweeter than the birds’;
And, with arms that fondle
Each as we go twirling,
We will kiss, with titterings,
Lisps and loving words.
SLUMBER-SONG
Sleep, little one! The Twilight folds her gloom
Full tenderly about the drowsy Day,
And all his tinselled hours of light and bloom
Like toys are laid away.
Sleep! sleep! The noon-sky’s airy cloud of white
Has deepened wide o’er all the azure plain;
And, trailing through the leaves, the skirts of Night
Are wet with dews as rain.
But rest thou sweetly, smiling in thy dreams,
With round fists tossed like roses o’er thy head,
And thy tranc’d lips and eyelids kissed with gleams
Of rapture perfected.
THE CIRCUS PARADE
The Circus!—The Circus!—The throb of the drums,
And the blare of the horns, as the Band-wagon comes;
The clash and the clang of the cymbals that beat,
As the glittering pageant winds down the long street!
In the Circus parade there is glory clean down
From the first spangled horse to the mule of the Clown,
With the gleam and the glint and the glamour and glare
Of the days of enchantment all glimmering there!
And there are the banners of silvery fold
Caressing the winds with their fringes of gold,
And their high-lifted standards, with spear-tips aglow,
And the helmeted knights that go riding below.
There’s the Chariot, wrought of some marvellous shell
The Sea gave to Neptune, first washing it well
With its fabulous waters of gold, till it gleams
Like the galleon rare of an Argonaut’s dreams.
And the Elephant, too, (with his undulant stride
That rocks the high throne of a king in his pride,)
That in jungles of India shook from his flanks
The tigers that leapt from the Jujubee-banks.
Here’s the long, ever-changing, mysterious line
Of the Cages, with hints of their glories divine
From the barred little windows, cut high in the rear,
Where the close-hidden animals’ noses appear.
Here’s the Pyramid-car, with its splendor and flash,
And the Goddess on high, in a hot-scarlet sash
And a pen-wiper skirt!—O the rarest of sights
Is this “Queen of the Air” in cerulean tights!
Then the far-away clash of the cymbals, and then
The swoon of the tune ere it wakens again
With the capering tones of the gallant cornet
That go dancing away in a mad minuet.
The Circus!—The Circus!—The throb of the drums,
And the blare of the horns, as the Band-wagon comes;
The clash and the clang of the cymbals that beat,
As the glittering pageant winds down the long street.
FOLKS AT LONESOMEVILLE
Pore-folks lives at Lonesomeville—
Lawzy! but they’re pore!
Houses with no winders in,
And hardly any door:
Chimbly all tore down, and no
Smoke in that at all—
Ist a stovepipe through a hole
In the kitchen-wall!
Pump ’at’s got no handle on;
And no woodshed—And, _wooh!_—
Mighty cold there, choppin’ wood,
Like pore-folks has to do!—
Winter-time, and snow and sleet
Ist fairly fit to kill!—
Hope to goodness _Santy Claus_
Goes to Lonesomeville!
THE THREE JOLLY HUNTERS
O there were three jolly hunters;
And a-hunting they did go,
With a spaniel-dog, and a pointer-dog,
And a setter-dog also.
Looky there!
And they hunted and they hal-looed;
And the first thing they did find
Was a dingling-dangling hornet’s-nest
A-swinging in the wind.
Looky there!
And the first one said—“What is it?”
Said the next, “We’ll punch and see”:
And the next one said, a mile from there,
“I wish we’d let it be!”
Looky there!
And they hunted and they hal-looed;
And the next thing they did raise
Was a bobbin’ bunny cottontail
That vanished from their gaze.
Looky there!
One said it was a hot base-ball,
Zipped through the brambly thatch,
But the others said ’twas a note by post,
Or a telegraph-dispatch.
Looky there!
So they hunted and they hal-looed;
And the next thing they did sight
Was a great big bulldog chasing them,
And a farmer, hollerin’ “Skite!”
Looky there!
And the first one said, “Hi-jinktum!”
And the next, “Hi-jinktum-jee!”
And the last one said, “Them very words
Had just occurred to me!”
Looky there!
THE LITTLE DOG-WOGGY
A Little Dog-Woggy
Once walked round the World:
So he shut up his house; and, forgetting
His two puppy-children
Locked in there, he curled
Up his tail in pink bombazine netting,
And set out
To walk round
The World.
He walked to Chicago,
And heard of the Fair—
Walked on to New York, where he _never_,—
In fact, he discovered
That many folks there
Thought less of Chicago than ever,
As he musing-
Ly walked round
The World.
He walked on to Boston,
And round Bunker Hill,
Bow-wowed, but no citizen heerd him—
Till he ordered his baggage
And called for his bill,
And then, bless their souls! how they cheered him,
As he gladly
Walked on round
The World.
He walked and walked on
For a year and a day—
Dropped down at his own door and panted,
Till a teamster came driving
Along the highway
And told him that house there was ha’nted
By the two starve-
Dest pups in
The World.
CHARMS
I
FOR CORNS AND THINGS
Prune your corn in the gray of the morn
With a blade that’s shaved the dead,
And barefoot go and hide it so
The rain will rust it red:
Dip your foot in the dew and put
A print of it on the floor,
And stew the fat of a brindle cat,
And say this o’er and o’er:—
Corny! morny! blady! dead!
Gory! sory! rusty! red!
Footsy! putsy! floory! stew!
Fatsy! catsy!
Mew!
Mew!
Come grease my corn
In the gray of the morn!
Mew! Mew! Mew!
II
TO REMOVE FRECKLES—SCOTCH ONES
Gae the mirkest night an’ stan’
’Twixt twa graves, ane either han’;
Wi’ the right han’ fumblin’ ken
Wha the deid mon’s name’s ance be’n,—
Wi’ the ither han’ sae read
Wha’s neist neebor o’ the deid;
An it be or wife or lass,
Smoor tha twa han’s i’ the grass,
Weshin’ either wi’ the ither,
Then tha faice wi’ baith thegither;
Syne ye’ll seeket at cockcraw—
Ilka freeckle’s gang awa!
A FEW OF THE BIRD-FAMILY
The Old Bob-white, and Chipbird;
The Flicker, and Chewink,
And little hopty-skip bird
Along the river-brink.
The Blackbird, and Snowbird,
The Chicken-hawk, and Crane;
The glossy old black Crow-bird,
And Buzzard down the lane.
The Yellowbird, and Redbird,
The Tomtit, and the Cat;
The Thrush, and that Red_head_-bird
The rests all pickin’ at!
The Jay-bird, and the Bluebird,
The Sapsuck, and the Wren—
The Cockadoodle-doo-bird,
And our old Settin’-hen!
THROUGH SLEEPY-LAND
Where do you go when you go to sleep,
Little Boy! Little Boy! where?
’Way—’way in where’s Little Bo-Peep,
And Little Boy Blue, and the Cows and Sheep
A-wandering ’way in there—in there—
A-wandering ’way in there!
And what do you see when lost in dreams,
Little Boy, ’way in there?
Firefly-glimmers and glow-worm gleams,
And silvery, low, slow-sliding streams,
And mermaids, smiling out—’way in where
They’re a-hiding—’way in there!
Where do you go when the Fairies call,
Little Boy! Little Boy! where?
Wade through the dews of the grasses tall,
Hearing the weir and the waterfall
And the Wee Folk—’way in there—in there—
And the Kelpies—’way in there!
And what do you do when you wake at dawn,
Little Boy! Little Boy! what?
Hug my Mommy and kiss her on
Her smiling eyelids, sweet and wan,
And tell her everything I’ve forgot,
A-wandering ’way in there—in there—
Through the blind-world ’way in there!
THE TRESTLE AND THE BUCK-SAW
The Trestle and the Buck-Saw
Went out a-walking once,
And staid away and staid away
For days and weeks and months:
And when they got back home again,
Of all that had occurred,
The neighbors said the gossips said
They never said a word.
THE KING OF OO-RINKTUM-JING
Dainty Baby Austin!
Your Daddy’s gone to Boston
To see the King
Of Oo-Rinktum-Jing
And the whale he rode acrost on!
Boston Town’s a city:
But O it’s such a pity!—
They’ll greet the King
Of Oo-Rinktum-Jing
With never a nursery ditty!
But me and you and Mother
Can stay with Baby-brother,
And sing of the King
Of Oo-Rinktum-Jing
And laugh at one another!
So what cares Baby Austin
If Daddy _has_ gone to Boston
To see the King
Of Oo-Rinktum-Jing
And the whale he rode acrost on?
THE TOY PENNY-DOG
Ma put my Penny-Dog
Safe on the shelf,
An’ left no one home but him,
Me an’ myself;
So I clumbed a big chair
I pushed to the wall—
But the Toy Penny-Dog
Ain’t there at all!
I went back to Dolly—
An’ _she_ ’uz gone too,
An’ little Switch ’uz layin’ there;—
An’ Ma says “_Boo!_”—
An’ there she wuz a-peepin’
Through the front-room door:
An’ I ain’t goin’ to be a bad
Little girl no more!