One day in June two wagons
Came over Antietam bridge
And a tall old man behind them
Strode up the turnpike ridge.
His beard was long and grizzled,
His face was gnarled and long,
His voice was keen and nasal,
And his mouth and eye were strong.
One wagon was full of boxes
And the other full of poles,
As the weaver's wife discovered
While the weaver took the tolls.
Two young men drove the horses,
And neither the people knew;
But young Nick asked a question
And that old man looked him through.
A little feed they purchased,
And their teams drank in the creek,
And to and fro they travelled
As silently for a week--
Went southward laden heavy,
And northward always light,
And the gnarled old man aye with them,
With the long beard flowing white.
From Sharpsburg up to Cavetown
The story slowly rolled--
That old man knew the mountains
Were filled with ore of gold.
The boxes held his crucibles;
'Twas haunted where he trod;
And every shafted pole he brought
Was a divining rod!
And none knew whence he came there,
Nor they his course who took,
Down the road to Harper's Ferry,
In a shaggy mountain nook;
But Nick the Sire grew certain,
While from his eye he shrunk,
That old man was none other
Than the missing Mr. Funk:
The famous city-builder
Who once had pitched upon
The sunny ledge of Funkstown,
And the site of Washington.
Again he was returning
To the Potomac side,
To found a temple in the hills
Before he failed and died!
And Nick laughed gently daily
That he alone had guessed
The mystery of the elder Funk
That had puzzled all the rest.
And younger Nick thought gently:
"Since that chap asked for Funk
There's been commotion in this town,
And daddy's always drunk."