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diff --git a/old/7cwld10.txt b/old/7cwld10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1bc748d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7cwld10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4041 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Child-World, by James Whitcomb Riley +#4 in our series by James Whitcomb Riley + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: A Child-World + +Author: James Whitcomb Riley + +Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9651] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 13, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHILD-WORLD *** + + + + +Produced by David Starner, Maria Cecilia Lim +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +A CHILD-WORLD + + +James Whitcomb Riley + + + + +A CHILD-WORLD + +_The Child-World--long and long since lost to view-- + A Fairy Paradise!-- + How always fair it was and fresh and new-- + How every affluent hour heaped heart and eyes + With treasures of surprise! + + Enchantments tangible: The under-brink + Of dawns that launched the sight + Up seas of gold: The dewdrop on the pink, + With all the green earth in it and blue height + Of heavens infinite: + + The liquid, dripping songs of orchard-birds-- + The wee bass of the bees,-- + With lucent deeps of silence afterwards; + The gay, clandestine whisperings of the breeze + And glad leaves of the trees. + + * * * * * + + O Child-World: After this world--just as when + I found you first sufficed + My soulmost need--if I found you again, + With all my childish dream so realised, + I should not be surprised._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + +PROEM + +THE CHILD-WORLD + +THE OLD-HOME FOLKS + +ALMON KEEPER + +NOEY BIXLER + +"A NOTED TRAVELER" + +A PROSPECTIVE VISIT + +AT NOEY'S HOUSE + +"THAT LITTLE DOG" + +THE LOEHRS AND THE HAMMONDS + +THE HIRED MAN AND FLORETTY + +THE EVENING COMPANY + +MAYMIE'S STORY OF RED RIDING HOOD + +LIMITATIONS OF GENIUS + +MR. HAMMOND'S PARABLE--THE DREAMER + +FLORETTY'S MUSICAL CONTRIBUTION + +BUD'S FAIRY-TALE + +A DELICIOUS INTERRUPTION + +NOEY'S NIGHT-PIECE + +COUSIN RUFUS' STORY + +BEWILDERING EMOTIONS + +ALEX TELLS A BEAR-STORY + +THE PATHOS OF APPLAUSE + +TOLD BY "THE NOTED TRAVELER" + +HEAT-LIGHTNING + +UNCLE MART'S POEM + +"LITTLE JACK JANITOR" + +FINALE + + + + +THE CHILD-WORLD + + +A Child-World, yet a wondrous world no less, +To those who knew its boundless happiness. +A simple old frame house--eight rooms in all-- +Set just one side the center of a small +But very hopeful Indiana town,-- +The upper-story looking squarely down +Upon the main street, and the main highway +From East to West,--historic in its day, +Known as The National Road--old-timers, all +Who linger yet, will happily recall +It as the scheme and handiwork, as well +As property, of "Uncle Sam," and tell +Of its importance, "long and long afore +Railroads wuz ever _dreamp_' of!"--Furthermore, +The reminiscent first Inhabitants +Will make that old road blossom with romance +Of snowy caravans, in long parade +Of covered vehicles, of every grade +From ox-cart of most primitive design, +To Conestoga wagons, with their fine +Deep-chested six-horse teams, in heavy gear, +High names and chiming bells--to childish ear +And eye entrancing as the glittering train +Of some sun-smitten pageant of old Spain. +And, in like spirit, haply they will tell +You of the roadside forests, and the yell +Of "wolfs" and "painters," in the long night-ride, +And "screechin' catamounts" on every side.-- +Of stagecoach-days, highwaymen, and strange crimes, +And yet unriddled mysteries of the times +Called "Good Old." "And why 'Good Old'?" once a rare +Old chronicler was asked, who brushed the hair +Out of his twinkling eyes and said,--"Well John, +They're 'good old times' because they're dead and gone!" + +The old home site was portioned into three +Distinctive lots. The front one--natively +Facing to southward, broad and gaudy-fine +With lilac, dahlia, rose, and flowering vine-- +The dwelling stood in; and behind that, and +Upon the alley north and south, left hand, +The old wood-house,--half, trimly stacked with wood, +And half, a work-shop, where a workbench stood +Steadfastly through all seasons.--Over it, +Along the wall, hung compass, brace-and-bit, +And square, and drawing-knife, and smoothing-plane-- +And little jack-plane, too--the children's vain +Possession by pretense--in fancy they +Manipulating it in endless play, +Turning out countless curls and loops of bright, +Fine satin shavings--Rapture infinite! +Shelved quilting-frames; the toolchest; the old box +Of refuse nails and screws; a rough gun-stock's +Outline in "curly maple"; and a pair +Of clamps and old krout-cutter hanging there. +Some "patterns," in thin wood, of shield and scroll, +Hung higher, with a neat "cane-fishing-pole" +And careful tackle--all securely out +Of reach of children, rummaging about. + +Beside the wood-house, with broad branches free +Yet close above the roof, an apple-tree +Known as "The Prince's Harvest"--Magic phrase! +That was _a boy's own tree_, in many ways!-- +Its girth and height meet both for the caress +Of his bare legs and his ambitiousness: +And then its apples, humoring his whim, +Seemed just to fairly _hurry_ ripe for him-- +Even in June, impetuous as he, +They dropped to meet him, halfway up the tree. +And O their bruised sweet faces where they fell!-- +And ho! the lips that feigned to "kiss them _well_"! + +"The Old Sweet-Apple-Tree," a stalwart, stood +In fairly sympathetic neighborhood +Of this wild princeling with his early gold +To toss about so lavishly nor hold +In bounteous hoard to overbrim at once +All Nature's lap when came the Autumn months. +Under the spacious shade of this the eyes +Of swinging children saw swift-changing skies +Of blue and green, with sunshine shot between, +And "when the old cat died" they saw but green. +And, then, there was a cherry-tree.--We all +And severally will yet recall +From our lost youth, in gentlest memory, +The blessed fact--There was a cherry-tree. + + There was a cherry-tree. Its bloomy snows + Cool even now the fevered sight that knows + No more its airy visions of pure joy-- + As when you were a boy. + + There was a cherry-tree. The Bluejay set + His blue against its white--O blue as jet + He seemed there then!--But _now_--Whoever knew + He was so pale a blue! + + There was a cherry-tree--Our child-eyes saw + The miracle:--Its pure white snows did thaw + Into a crimson fruitage, far too sweet + But for a boy to eat. + + There was a cherry-tree, give thanks and joy!-- + There was a bloom of snow--There was a boy-- + There was a Bluejay of the realest blue-- + And fruit for both of you. + +Then the old garden, with the apple-trees +Grouped 'round the margin, and "a stand of bees" +By the "white-winter-pearmain"; and a row +Of currant-bushes; and a quince or so. +The old grape-arbor in the center, by +The pathway to the stable, with the sty +Behind it, and _upon_ it, cootering flocks +Of pigeons, and the cutest "martin-box"!-- +Made like a sure-enough house--with roof, and doors +And windows in it, and veranda-floors +And balusters all 'round it--yes, and at +Each end a chimney--painted red at that +And penciled white, to look like little bricks; +And, to cap all the builder's cunning tricks, +Two tiny little lightning-rods were run +Straight up their sides, and twinkled in the sun. +Who built it? Nay, no answer but a smile.-- +It _may_ be you can guess who, afterwhile. +Home in his stall, "Old Sorrel" munched his hay +And oats and corn, and switched the flies away, +In a repose of patience good to see, +And earnest of the gentlest pedigree. +With half pathetic eye sometimes he gazed +Upon the gambols of a colt that grazed +Around the edges of the lot outside, +And kicked at nothing suddenly, and tried +To act grown-up and graceful and high-bred, +But dropped, _k'whop!_ and scraped the buggy-shed, +Leaving a tuft of woolly, foxy hair +Under the sharp-end of a gate-hinge there. +Then, all ignobly scrambling to his feet +And whinneying a whinney like a bleat, +He would pursue himself around the lot +And--do the whole thing over, like as not!... +Ah! what a life of constant fear and dread +And flop and squawk and flight the chickens led! +Above the fences, either side, were seen +The neighbor-houses, set in plots of green +Dooryards and greener gardens, tree and wall +Alike whitewashed, and order in it all: +The scythe hooked in the tree-fork; and the spade +And hoe and rake and shovel all, when laid +Aside, were in their places, ready for +The hand of either the possessor or +Of any neighbor, welcome to the loan +Of any tool he might not chance to own. + + + + +THE OLD-HOME FOLKS + +Such was the Child-World of the long-ago-- +The little world these children used to know:-- +Johnty, the oldest, and the best, perhaps, +Of the five happy little Hoosier chaps +Inhabiting this wee world all their own.-- +Johnty, the leader, with his native tone +Of grave command--a general on parade +Whose each punctilious order was obeyed +By his proud followers. + + But Johnty yet-- +After all serious duties--could forget +The gravity of life to the extent, +At times, of kindling much astonishment +About him: With a quick, observant eye, +And mind and memory, he could supply +The tamest incident with liveliest mirth; +And at the most unlooked-for times on earth +Was wont to break into some travesty +On those around him--feats of mimicry +Of this one's trick of gesture--that one's walk-- +Or this one's laugh--or that one's funny talk,-- +The way "the watermelon-man" would try +His humor on town-folks that wouldn't buy;-- +How he drove into town at morning--then +At dusk (alas!) how he drove out again. + +Though these divertisements of Johnty's were +Hailed with a hearty glee and relish, there +Appeared a sense, on his part, of regret-- +A spirit of remorse that would not let +Him rest for days thereafter.--Such times he, +As some boy said, "jist got too overly +Blame good fer common boys like us, you know, +To '_so_ciate with--less'n we 'ud go +And jine his church!" + + Next after Johnty came +His little tow-head brother, Bud by name.-- +And O how white his hair was--and how thick +His face with freckles,--and his ears, how quick +And curious and intrusive!--And how pale +The blue of his big eyes;--and how a tale +Of Giants, Trolls or Fairies, bulged them still +Bigger and bigger!--and when "Jack" would kill +The old "Four-headed Giant," Bud's big eyes +Were swollen truly into giant-size. +And Bud was apt in make-believes--would hear +His Grandma talk or read, with such an ear +And memory of both subject and big words, +That he would take the book up afterwards +And feign to "read aloud," with such success +As caused his truthful elders real distress. +But he _must_ have _big words_--they seemed to give +Extremer range to the superlative-- +That was his passion. "My Gran'ma," he said, +One evening, after listening as she read +Some heavy old historical review-- +With copious explanations thereunto +Drawn out by his inquiring turn of mind,-- +"My Gran'ma she's read _all_ books--ever' kind +They is, 'at tells all 'bout the land an' sea +An' Nations of the Earth!--An' she is the +Historicul-est woman ever wuz!" +(Forgive the verse's chuckling as it does +In its erratic current.--Oftentimes +The little willowy waterbrook of rhymes +Must falter in its music, listening to +The children laughing as they used to do.) + + Who shall sing a simple ditty all about the Willow, + Dainty-fine and delicate as any bending spray + That dandles high the happy bird that flutters there to trill a + Tremulously tender song of greeting to the May. + + Ah, my lovely Willow!--Let the Waters lilt your graces,-- + They alone with limpid kisses lave your leaves above, + Flashing back your sylvan beauty, and in shady places + Peering up with glimmering pebbles, like the eyes of love. + +Next, Maymie, with her hazy cloud of hair, +And the blue skies of eyes beneath it there. +Her dignified and "little lady" airs +Of never either romping up the stairs +Or falling down them; thoughtful everyway +Of others first--The kind of child at play +That "gave up," for the rest, the ripest pear +Or peach or apple in the garden there +Beneath the trees where swooped the airy swing-- +She pushing it, too glad for anything! +Or, in the character of hostess, she +Would entertain her friends delightfully +In her play-house,--with strips of carpet laid +Along the garden-fence within the shade +Of the old apple-trees--where from next yard +Came the two dearest friends in her regard, +The little Crawford girls, Ella and Lu-- +As shy and lovely as the lilies grew +In their idyllic home,--yet sometimes they +Admitted Bud and Alex to their play, +Who did their heavier work and helped them fix +To have a "Festibul"--and brought the bricks +And built the "stove," with a real fire and all, +And stovepipe-joint for chimney, looming tall +And wonderfully smoky--even to +Their childish aspirations, as it blew +And swooped and swirled about them till their sight +Was feverish even as their high delight. +Then Alex, with his freckles, and his freaks +Of temper, and the peach-bloom of his cheeks, +And "_amber-colored_ hair"--his mother said +'Twas that, when others laughed and called it "_red_" +And Alex threw things at them--till they'd call +A truce, agreeing "'t'uz n't red _ut-tall_!" + +But Alex was affectionate beyond +The average child, and was extremely fond +Of the paternal relatives of his +Of whom he once made estimate like this:-- +"_I'm_ only got _two_ brothers,--but my _Pa_ +He's got most brothers'n you ever saw!-- +He's got _seben_ brothers!--Yes, an' they're all my +Seben Uncles!--Uncle John, an' Jim,--an' I' +Got Uncle George, an' Uncle Andy, too, +An' Uncle Frank, an' Uncle Joe.--An' you +_Know_ Uncle _Mart_.--An', all but _him_, they're great +Big mens!--An' nen s Aunt Sarah--she makes eight!-- +I'm got _eight_ uncles!--'cept Aunt Sarah _can't_ +Be ist my _uncle_ 'cause she's ist my _aunt_!" + +Then, next to Alex--and the last indeed +Of these five little ones of whom you read-- +Was baby Lizzie, with her velvet lisp,-- +As though her Elfin lips had caught some wisp +Of floss between them as they strove with speech, +Which ever seemed just in yet out of reach-- +Though what her lips missed, her dark eyes could say +With looks that made her meaning clear as day. + +And, knowing now the children, you must know +The father and the mother they loved so:-- +The father was a swarthy man, black-eyed, +Black-haired, and high of forehead; and, beside +The slender little mother, seemed in truth +A very king of men--since, from his youth, +To his hale manhood _now_--(worthy as then,-- +A lawyer and a leading citizen +Of the proud little town and county-seat-- +His hopes his neighbors', and their fealty sweet)-- +He had known outdoor labor--rain and shine-- +Bleak Winter, and bland Summer--foul and fine. +So Nature had ennobled him and set +Her symbol on him like a coronet: +His lifted brow, and frank, reliant face.-- +Superior of stature as of grace, +Even the children by the spell were wrought +Up to heroics of their simple thought, +And saw him, trim of build, and lithe and straight +And tall, almost, as at the pasture-gate +The towering ironweed the scythe had spared +For their sakes, when The Hired Man declared +It would grow on till it became a _tree_, +With cocoanuts and monkeys in--maybe! + +Yet, though the children, in their pride and awe +And admiration of the father, saw +A being so exalted--even more +Like adoration was the love they bore +The gentle mother.--Her mild, plaintive face +Was purely fair, and haloed with a grace +And sweetness luminous when joy made glad +Her features with a smile; or saintly sad +As twilight, fell the sympathetic gloom +Of any childish grief, or as a room +Were darkened suddenly, the curtain drawn +Across the window and the sunshine gone. +Her brow, below her fair hair's glimmering strands, +Seemed meetest resting-place for blessing hands +Or holiest touches of soft finger-tips +And little roseleaf-cheeks and dewy lips. + +Though heavy household tasks were pitiless, +No little waist or coat or checkered dress +But knew her needle's deftness; and no skill +Matched hers in shaping pleat or flounce or frill; +Or fashioning, in complicate design, +All rich embroideries of leaf and vine, +With tiniest twining tendril,--bud and bloom +And fruit, so like, one's fancy caught perfume +And dainty touch and taste of them, to see +Their semblance wrought in such rare verity. + +Shrined in her sanctity of home and love, +And love's fond service and reward thereof, +Restore her thus, O blessed Memory!-- +Throned in her rocking-chair, and on her knee +Her sewing--her workbasket on the floor +Beside her,--Springtime through the open door +Balmily stealing in and all about +The room; the bees' dim hum, and the far shout +And laughter of the children at their play, +And neighbor-children from across the way +Calling in gleeful challenge--save alone +One boy whose voice sends back no answering tone-- +The boy, prone on the floor, above a book +Of pictures, with a rapt, ecstatic look-- +Even as the mother's, by the selfsame spell, +Is lifted, with a light ineffable-- +As though her senses caught no mortal cry, +But heard, instead, some poem going by. + + The Child-heart is so strange a little thing-- + So mild--so timorously shy and small.-- + When _grown-up_ hearts throb, it goes scampering + Behind the wall, nor dares peer out at all!-- + It is the veriest mouse + That hides in any house-- + So wild a little thing is any Child-heart! + + _Child-heart!--mild heart!-- + Ho, my little wild heart!-- + Come up here to me out o' the dark, + Or let me come to you!_ + + So lorn at times the Child-heart needs must be. + With never one maturer heart for friend + And comrade, whose tear-ripened sympathy + And love might lend it comfort to the end,-- + Whose yearnings, aches and stings. + Over poor little things + Were pitiful as ever any Child-heart. + + _Child-heart!--mild heart!-- + Ho, my little wild heart!-- + Come up here to me out o' the dark, + Or let me come to you!_ + + Times, too, the little Child-heart must be glad-- + Being so young, nor knowing, as _we_ know. + The fact from fantasy, the good from bad, + The joy from woe, the--_all_ that hurts us so! + What wonder then that thus + It hides away from us?-- + So weak a little thing is any Child-heart! + + _Child-heart!--mild heart!-- + Ho, my little wild heart!-- + Come up here to me out o' the dark, + Or let me come to you!_ + + Nay, little Child-heart, you have never need + To fear _us_,--we are weaker far than you-- + Tis _we_ who should be fearful--we indeed + Should hide us, too, as darkly as you do,-- + Safe, as yourself, withdrawn, + Hearing the World roar on + Too willful, woful, awful for the Child-heart! + + _Child-heart!--mild heart!-- + Ho, my little wild heart!-- + Come up here to me out o' the dark, + Or let me come to you!_ + +The clock chats on confidingly; a rose +Taps at the window, as the sunlight throws +A brilliant, jostling checkerwork of shine +And shadow, like a Persian-loom design, +Across the homemade carpet--fades,--and then +The dear old colors are themselves again. +Sounds drop in visiting from everywhere-- +The bluebird's and the robin's trill are there, +Their sweet liquidity diluted some +By dewy orchard spaces they have come: +Sounds of the town, too, and the great highway-- +The Mover-wagons' rumble, and the neigh +Of overtraveled horses, and the bleat +Of sheep and low of cattle through the street-- +A Nation's thoroughfare of hopes and fears, +First blazed by the heroic pioneers +Who gave up old-home idols and set face +Toward the unbroken West, to found a race +And tame a wilderness now mightier than +All peoples and all tracts American. +Blent with all outer sounds, the sounds within:-- +In mild remoteness falls the household din +Of porch and kitchen: the dull jar and thump +Of churning; and the "glung-glung" of the pump, +With sudden pad and skurry of bare feet +Of little outlaws, in from field or street: +The clang of kettle,--rasp of damper-ring +And bang of cookstove-door--and everything +That jingles in a busy kitchen lifts +Its individual wrangling voice and drifts +In sweetest tinny, coppery, pewtery tone +Of music hungry ear has ever known +In wildest famished yearning and conceit +Of youth, to just cut loose and eat and eat!-- +The zest of hunger still incited on +To childish desperation by long-drawn +Breaths of hot, steaming, wholesome things that stew +And blubber, and up-tilt the pot-lids, too, +Filling the sense with zestful rumors of +The dear old-fashioned dinners children love: +Redolent savorings of home-cured meats, +Potatoes, beans, and cabbage; turnips, beets +And parsnips--rarest composite entire +That ever pushed a mortal child's desire +To madness by new-grated fresh, keen, sharp +Horseradish--tang that sets the lips awarp +And watery, anticipating all +The cloyed sweets of the glorious festival.-- +Still add the cinnamony, spicy scents +Of clove, nutmeg, and myriad condiments +In like-alluring whiffs that prophesy +Of sweltering pudding, cake, and custard pie-- +The swooning-sweet aroma haunting all +The house--upstairs and down--porch, parlor, hall +And sitting-room--invading even where +The Hired Man sniffs it in the orchard-air, +And pauses in his pruning of the trees +To note the sun minutely and to--sneeze. + +Then Cousin Rufus comes--the children hear +His hale voice in the old hall, ringing clear +As any bell. Always he came with song +Upon his lips and all the happy throng +Of echoes following him, even as the crowd +Of his admiring little kinsmen--proud +To have a cousin _grown_--and yet as young +Of soul and cheery as the songs he sung. + +He was a student of the law--intent +Soundly to win success, with all it meant; +And so he studied--even as he played,-- +With all his heart: And so it was he made +His gallant fight for fortune--through all stress +Of battle bearing him with cheeriness +And wholesome valor. + + And the children had +Another relative who kept them glad +And joyous by his very merry ways-- +As blithe and sunny as the summer days,-- +Their father's youngest brother--Uncle Mart. +The old "Arabian Nights" he knew by heart-- +"Baron Munchausen," too; and likewise "The +Swiss Family Robinson."--And when these three +Gave out, as he rehearsed them, he could go +Straight on in the same line--a steady flow +Of arabesque invention that his good +Old mother never clearly understood. +He _was_ to be a _printer_--wanted, though, +To be an _actor_.--But the world was "show" +Enough for _him_,--theatric, airy, gay,-- +Each day to him was jolly as a play. +And some poetic symptoms, too, in sooth, +Were certain.--And, from his apprentice youth, +He joyed in verse-quotations--which he took +Out of the old "Type Foundry Specimen Book." +He craved and courted most the favor of +The children.--They were foremost in his love; +And pleasing _them_, he pleased his own boy-heart +And kept it young and fresh in every part. +So was it he devised for them and wrought +To life his quaintest, most romantic thought:-- +Like some lone castaway in alien seas, +He built a house up in the apple-trees, +Out in the corner of the garden, where +No man-devouring native, prowling there, +Might pounce upon them in the dead o' night-- +For lo, their little ladder, slim and light, +They drew up after them. And it was known +That Uncle Mart slipped up sometimes alone +And drew the ladder in, to lie and moon +Over some novel all the afternoon. +And one time Johnty, from the crowd below,-- +Outraged to find themselves deserted so-- +Threw bodily their old black cat up in +The airy fastness, with much yowl and din. +Resulting, while a wild periphery +Of cat went circling to another tree, +And, in impassioned outburst, Uncle Mart +Loomed up, and thus relieved his tragic heart: + + "'_Hence, long-tailed, ebon-eyed, nocturnal ranger! + What led thee hither 'mongst the types and cases? + Didst thou not know that running midnight races + O'er standing types was fraught with imminent danger? + Did hunger lead thee--didst thou think to find + Some rich old cheese to fill thy hungry maw? + Vain hope! for none but literary jaw + Can masticate our cookery for the mind!_'" + +So likewise when, with lordly air and grace, +He strode to dinner, with a tragic face +With ink-spots on it from the office, he +Would aptly quote more "Specimen-poetry--" +Perchance like "'Labor's bread is sweet to eat, +(_Ahem!_) And toothsome is the toiler's meat.'" + +Ah, could you see them _all_, at lull of noon!-- +A sort of _boisterous_ lull, with clink of spoon +And clatter of deflecting knife, and plate +Dropped saggingly, with its all-bounteous weight, +And dragged in place voraciously; and then +Pent exclamations, and the lull again.-- +The garland of glad faces 'round the board-- +Each member of the family restored +To his or her place, with an extra chair +Or two for the chance guests so often there.-- +The father's farmer-client, brought home from +The courtroom, though he "didn't _want_ to come +Tel he jist saw he _hat_ to!" he'd explain, +Invariably, time and time again, +To the pleased wife and hostess, as she pressed +Another cup of coffee on the guest.-- +Or there was Johnty's special chum, perchance, +Or Bud's, or both--each childish countenance +Lit with a higher glow of youthful glee, +To be together thus unbrokenly,-- +Jim Offutt, or Eck Skinner, or George Carr-- +The very nearest chums of Bud's these are,-- +So, very probably, _one_ of the three, +At least, is there with Bud, or _ought_ to be. +Like interchange the town-boys each had known-- +His playmate's dinner better than his own-- +_Yet_ blest that he was ever made to stay +At _Almon Keefer's, any_ blessed day, +For _any_ meal!... Visions of biscuits, hot +And flaky-perfect, with the golden blot +Of molten butter for the center, clear, +Through pools of clover-honey--_dear-o-dear!_-- +With creamy milk for its divine "farewell": +And then, if any one delectable +Might yet exceed in sweetness, O restore +The cherry-cobbler of the days of yore +Made only by Al Keefer's mother!--Why, +The very thought of it ignites the eye +Of memory with rapture--cloys the lip +Of longing, till it seems to ooze and drip +With veriest juice and stain and overwaste +Of that most sweet delirium of taste +That ever visited the childish tongue, +Or proved, as now, the sweetest thing unsung. + + + + +ALMON KEEFER + +Ah, Almon Keefer! what a boy you were, +With your back-tilted hat and careless hair, +And open, honest, fresh, fair face and eyes +With their all-varying looks of pleased surprise +And joyous interest in flower and tree, +And poising humming-bird, and maundering bee. + +The fields and woods he knew; the tireless tramp +With gun and dog; and the night-fisher's camp-- +No other boy, save Bee Lineback, had won +Such brilliant mastery of rod and gun. +Even in his earliest childhood had he shown +These traits that marked him as his father's own. +Dogs all paid Almon honor and bow-wowed +Allegiance, let him come in any crowd +Of rabbit-hunting town-boys, even though +His own dog "Sleuth" rebuked their acting so +With jealous snarls and growlings. + + But the best +Of Almon's virtues--leading all the rest-- +Was his great love of books, and skill as well +In reading them aloud, and by the spell +Thereof enthralling his mute listeners, as +They grouped about him in the orchard grass, +Hinging their bare shins in the mottled shine +And shade, as they lay prone, or stretched supine +Beneath their favorite tree, with dreamy eyes +And Argo-fandes voyaging the skies. +"Tales of the Ocean" was the name of one +Old dog's-eared book that was surpassed by none +Of all the glorious list.--Its back was gone, +But its vitality went bravely on +In such delicious tales of land and sea +As may not ever perish utterly. +Of still more dubious caste, "Jack Sheppard" drew +Full admiration; and "Dick Turpin," too. +And, painful as the fact is to convey, +In certain lurid tales of their own day, +These boys found thieving heroes and outlaws +They hailed with equal fervor of applause: +"The League of the Miami"--why, the name +Alone was fascinating--is the same, +In memory, this venerable hour +Of moral wisdom shorn of all its power, +As it unblushingly reverts to when +The old barn was "the Cave," and hears again +The signal blown, outside the buggy-shed-- +The drowsy guard within uplifts his head, +And "'_Who goes there?_'" is called, in bated breath-- +The challenge answered in a hush of death,-- +"Sh!--'_Barney Gray!_'" And then "'_What do you seek?_'" +"'_Stables of The League!_'" the voice comes spent and weak, +For, ha! the _Law_ is on the "Chieftain's" trail-- +Tracked to his very lair!--Well, what avail? +The "secret entrance" opens--closes.--So +The "Robber-Captain" thus outwits his foe; +And, safe once more within his "cavern-halls," +He shakes his clenched fist at the warped plank-walls +And mutters his defiance through the cracks +At the balked Enemy's retreating backs +As the loud horde flees pell-mell down the lane, +And--_Almon Keefer_ is himself again! + +Excepting few, they were not books indeed +Of deep import that Almon chose to read;-- +Less fact than fiction.--Much he favored those-- +If not in poetry, in hectic prose-- +That made our native Indian a wild, +Feathered and fine-preened hero that a child +Could recommend as just about the thing +To make a god of, or at least a king. +Aside from Almon's own books--two or three-- +His store of lore The Township Library +Supplied him weekly: All the books with "or"s-- +Sub-titled--lured him--after "Indian Wars," +And "Life of Daniel Boone,"--not to include +Some few books spiced with humor,--"Robin Hood" +And rare "Don Quixote."--And one time he took +"Dadd's Cattle Doctor."... How he hugged the book +And hurried homeward, with internal glee +And humorous spasms of expectancy!-- +All this confession--as he promptly made +It, the day later, writhing in the shade +Of the old apple-tree with Johnty and +Bud, Noey Bixler, and The Hired Hand-- +Was quite as funny as the book was not.... +O Wonderland of wayward Childhood! what +An easy, breezy realm of summer calm +And dreamy gleam and gloom and bloom and balm +Thou art!--The Lotus-Land the poet sung, +It is the Child-World while the heart beats young.... + + While the heart beats young!--O the splendor of the Spring, + With all her dewy jewels on, is not so fair a thing! + The fairest, rarest morning of the blossom-time of May + Is not so sweet a season as the season of to-day + While Youth's diviner climate folds and holds us, close caressed, + As we feel our mothers with us by the touch of face and breast;-- + Our bare feet in the meadows, and our fancies up among + The airy clouds of morning--while the heart beats young. + + While the heart beats young and our pulses leap and dance. + With every day a holiday and life a glad romance,-- + We hear the birds with wonder, and with wonder watch their flight-- + Standing still the more enchanted, both of hearing and of sight, + When they have vanished wholly,--for, in fancy, wing-to-wing + We fly to Heaven with them; and, returning, still we sing + The praises of this lower Heaven with tireless voice and tongue, + Even as the Master sanctions--while the heart beats young. + + While the heart beats young!--While the heart beats young! + O green and gold old Earth of ours, with azure overhung + And looped with rainbows!--grant us yet this grassy lap of thine-- + We would be still thy children, through the shower and the shine! + So pray we, lisping, whispering, in childish love and trust + With our beseeching hands and faces lifted from the dust + By fervor of the poem, all unwritten and unsung, + Thou givest us in answer, while the heart beats young. + + + + +NOEY BIXLER + +Another hero of those youthful years +Returns, as Noey Bixler's name appears. +And Noey--if in any special way-- +Was notably good-natured.--Work or play +He entered into with selfsame delight-- +A wholesome interest that made him quite +As many friends among the old as young,-- +So everywhere were Noey's praises sung. + +And he was awkward, fat and overgrown, +With a round full-moon face, that fairly shone +As though to meet the simile's demand. +And, cumbrous though he seemed, both eye and hand +Were dowered with the discernment and deft skill +Of the true artisan: He shaped at will, +In his old father's shop, on rainy days, +Little toy-wagons, and curved-runner sleighs; +The trimmest bows and arrows--fashioned, too. +Of "seasoned timber," such as Noey knew +How to select, prepare, and then complete, +And call his little friends in from the street. +"The very _best_ bow," Noey used to say, +"Haint made o' ash ner hick'ry thataway!-- +But you git _mulberry_--the _bearin_'-tree, +Now mind ye! and you fetch the piece to me, +And lem me git it _seasoned_; then, i gum! +I'll make a bow 'at you kin brag on some! +Er--ef you can't git _mulberry_,--you bring +Me a' old _locus_' hitch-post, and i jing! +I'll make a bow o' _that_ 'at _common_ bows +Won't dast to pick on ner turn up their nose!" +And Noey knew the woods, and all the trees, +And thickets, plants and myriad mysteries +Of swamp and bottom-land. And he knew where +The ground-hog hid, and why located there.-- +He knew all animals that burrowed, swam, +Or lived in tree-tops: And, by race and dam, +He knew the choicest, safest deeps wherein +Fish-traps might flourish nor provoke the sin +Of theft in some chance peeking, prying sneak, +Or town-boy, prowling up and down the creek. +All four-pawed creatures tamable--he knew +Their outer and their inner natures too; +While they, in turn, were drawn to him as by +Some subtle recognition of a tie +Of love, as true as truth from end to end, +Between themselves and this strange human friend. +The same with birds--he knew them every one, +And he could "name them, too, without a gun." +No wonder _Johnty_ loved him, even to +The verge of worship.--Noey led him through +The art of trapping redbirds--yes, and taught +Him how to keep them when he had them caught-- +What food they needed, and just where to swing +The cage, if he expected them to _sing_. + +And _Bud_ loved Noey, for the little pair +Of stilts he made him; or the stout old hair +Trunk Noey put on wheels, and laid a track +Of scantling-railroad for it in the back +Part of the barn-lot; or the cross-bow, made +Just like a gun, which deadly weapon laid +Against his shoulder as he aimed, and--"_Sping!_" +He'd hear the rusty old nail zoon and sing-- +And _zip!_ your Mr. Bluejay's wing would drop +A farewell-feather from the old tree-top! +And _Maymie_ loved him, for the very small +But perfect carriage for her favorite doll-- +A _lady's_ carriage--not a _baby_-cab,-- +But oilcloth top, and two seats, lined with drab +And trimmed with white lace-paper from a case +Of shaving-soap his uncle bought some place +At auction once. + + And _Alex_ loved him yet +The best, when Noey brought him, for a pet, +A little flying-squirrel, with great eyes-- +Big as a child's: And, childlike otherwise, +It was at first a timid, tremulous, coy, +Retiring little thing that dodged the boy +And tried to keep in Noey's pocket;--till, +In time, responsive to his patient will, +It became wholly docile, and content +With its new master, as he came and went,-- +The squirrel clinging flatly to his breast, +Or sometimes scampering its craziest +Around his body spirally, and then +Down to his very heels and up again. + +And _Little Lizzie_ loved him, as a bee +Loves a great ripe red apple--utterly. +For Noey's ruddy morning-face she drew +The window-blind, and tapped the window, too; +Afar she hailed his coming, as she heard +His tuneless whistling--sweet as any bird +It seemed to her, the one lame bar or so +Of old "Wait for the Wagon"--hoarse and low +The sound was,--so that, all about the place, +Folks joked and said that Noey "whistled bass"-- +The light remark originally made +By Cousin Rufus, who knew notes, and played +The flute with nimble skill, and taste as wall, +And, critical as he was musical, +Regarded Noey's constant whistling thus +"Phenominally unmelodious." +Likewise when Uncle Mart, who shared the love +Of jest with Cousin Rufus hand-in-glove, +Said "Noey couldn't whistle '_Bonny Doon_' +Even! and, _he'd_ bet, couldn't carry a tune +If it had handles to it!" + + --But forgive +The deviations here so fugitive, +And turn again to Little Lizzie, whose +High estimate of Noey we shall choose +Above all others.--And to her he was +Particularly lovable because +He laid the woodland's harvest at her feet.-- +He brought her wild strawberries, honey-sweet +And dewy-cool, in mats of greenest moss +And leaves, all woven over and across +With tender, biting "tongue-grass," and "sheep-sour," +And twin-leaved beach-mast, prankt with bud and flower +Of every gypsy-blossom of the wild, +Dark, tangled forest, dear to any child.-- +All these in season. Nor could barren, drear, +White and stark-featured Winter interfere +With Noey's rare resources: Still the same +He blithely whistled through the snow and came +Beneath the window with a Fairy sled; +And Little Lizzie, bundled heels-and-head, +He took on such excursions of delight +As even "Old Santy" with his reindeer might +Have envied her! And, later, when the snow +Was softening toward Springtime and the glow +Of steady sunshine smote upon it,--then +Came the magician Noey yet again-- +While all the children were away a day +Or two at Grandma's!--and behold when they +Got home once more;--there, towering taller than +The doorway--stood a mighty, old Snow-Man! + +A thing of peerless art--a masterpiece +Doubtless unmatched by even classic Greece +In heyday of Praxiteles.--Alone +It loomed in lordly grandeur all its own. +And steadfast, too, for weeks and weeks it stood, +The admiration of the neighborhood +As well as of the children Noey sought +Only to honor in the work he wrought. +The traveler paid it tribute, as he passed +Along the highway--paused and, turning, cast +A lingering, last look--as though to take +A vivid print of it, for memory's sake, +To lighten all the empty, aching miles +Beyond with brighter fancies, hopes and smiles. +The cynic put aside his biting wit +And tacitly declared in praise of it; +And even the apprentice-poet of the town +Rose to impassioned heights, and then sat down +And penned a panegyric scroll of rhyme +That made the Snow-Man famous for all time. + +And though, as now, the ever warmer sun +Of summer had so melted and undone +The perishable figure that--alas!-- +Not even in dwindled white against the grass-- +Was left its latest and minutest ghost, +The children yet--_materially_, almost-- +Beheld it--circled 'round it hand-in-hand-- +(Or rather 'round the place it used to stand)-- +With "Ring-a-round-a-rosy! Bottle full +O' posey!" and, with shriek and laugh, would pull +From seeming contact with it--just as when +It was the _real-est_ of old Snow-Men. + + + + +"A NOTED TRAVELER" + +Even in such a scene of senseless play +The children were surprised one summer-day +By a strange man who called across the fence, +Inquiring for their father's residence; +And, being answered that this was the place, +Opened the gate, and with a radiant face, +Came in and sat down with them in the shade +And waited--till the absent father made +His noon appearance, with a warmth and zest +That told he had no ordinary guest +In this man whose low-spoken name he knew +At once, demurring as the stranger drew +A stuffy notebook out and turned and set +A big fat finger on a page and let +The writing thereon testify instead +Of further speech. And as the father read +All silently, the curious children took +Exacting inventory both of book +And man:--He wore a long-napped white fur-hat +Pulled firmly on his head, and under that +Rather long silvery hair, or iron-gray-- +For he was not an old man,--anyway, +Not beyond sixty. And he wore a pair +Of square-framed spectacles--or rather there +Were two more than a pair,--the extra two +Flared at the corners, at the eyes' side-view, +In as redundant vision as the eyes +Of grasshoppers or bees or dragonflies. +Later the children heard the father say +He was "A Noted Traveler," and would stay +Some days with them--In which time host and guest +Discussed, alone, in deepest interest, +Some vague, mysterious matter that defied +The wistful children, loitering outside +The spare-room door. There Bud acquired a quite +New list of big words--such as "Disunite," +And "Shibboleth," and "Aristocracy," +And "Juggernaut," and "Squatter Sovereignty," +And "Anti-slavery," "Emancipate," +"Irrepressible conflict," and "The Great +Battle of Armageddon"--obviously +A pamphlet brought from Washington, D. C., +And spread among such friends as might occur +Of like views with "The Noted Traveler." + + + + +A PROSPECTIVE VISIT + +While _any_ day was notable and dear +That gave the children Noey, history here +Records his advent emphasized indeed +With sharp italics, as he came to feed +The stock one special morning, fair and bright, +When Johnty and Bud met him, with delight +Unusual even as their extra dress-- +Garbed as for holiday, with much excess +Of proud self-consciousness and vain conceit +In their new finery.--Far up the street +They called to Noey, as he came, that they, +As promised, both were going back that day +To _his_ house with him! + + And by time that each +Had one of Noey's hands--ceasing their speech +And coyly anxious, in their new attire, +To wake the comment of their mute desire,-- +Noey seemed rendered voiceless. Quite a while +They watched him furtively.--He seemed to smile +As though he would conceal it; and they saw +Him look away, and his lips purse and draw +In curious, twitching spasms, as though he might +Be whispering,--while in his eye the white +Predominated strangely.--Then the spell +Gave way, and his pent speech burst audible: +"They wuz two stylish little boys, + and they wuz mighty bold ones, +Had two new pairs o' britches made + out o' their daddy's old ones!" +And at the inspirational outbreak, +Both joker and his victims seemed to take +An equal share of laughter,--and all through +Their morning visit kept recurring to +The funny words and jingle of the rhyme +That just kept getting funnier all the time. + + + + +AT NOEY'S HOUSE + +At Noey's house--when they arrived with him-- +How snug seemed everything, and neat and trim: +The little picket-fence, and little gate-- +It's little pulley, and its little weight,-- +All glib as clock-work, as it clicked behind +Them, on the little red brick pathway, lined +With little paint-keg-vases and teapots +Of wee moss-blossoms and forgetmenots: +And in the windows, either side the door, +Were ranged as many little boxes more +Of like old-fashioned larkspurs, pinks and moss +And fern and phlox; while up and down across +Them rioted the morning-glory-vines +On taut-set cotton-strings, whose snowy lines +Whipt in and out and under the bright green +Like basting-threads; and, here and there between, +A showy, shiny hollyhock would flare +Its pink among the white and purple there.-- +And still behind the vines, the children saw +A strange, bleached, wistful face that seemed to draw +A vague, indefinite sympathy. A face +It was of some newcomer to the place.-- +In explanation, Noey, briefly, said +That it was "Jason," as he turned and led +The little fellows 'round the house to show +Them his menagerie of pets. And so +For quite a time the face of the strange guest +Was partially forgotten, as they pressed +About the squirrel-cage and rousted both +The lazy inmates out, though wholly loath +To whirl the wheel for them.--And then with awe +They walked 'round Noey's big pet owl, and saw +Him film his great, clear, liquid eyes and stare +And turn and turn and turn his head 'round there +The same way they kept circling--as though he +Could turn it one way thus eternally. + +Behind the kitchen, then, with special pride +Noey stirred up a terrapin inside +The rain-barrel where he lived, with three or four +Little mud-turtles of a size not more +In neat circumference than the tiny toy +Dumb-watches worn by every little boy. + +Then, back of the old shop, beneath the tree +Of "rusty-coats," as Noey called them, he +Next took the boys, to show his favorite new +Pet 'coon--pulled rather coyly into view +Up through a square hole in the bottom of +An old inverted tub he bent above, +Yanking a little chain, with "Hey! you, sir! +Here's _comp'ny_ come to see you, Bolivur!" +Explanatory, he went on to say, +"I named him '_Bolivur_' jes thisaway,-- +He looks so _round_ and _ovalish_ and _fat_, +'Peared like no other name 'ud fit but that." + +Here Noey's father called and sent him on +Some errand. "Wait," he said--"I won't be gone +A half a' hour.--Take Bud, and go on in +Where Jason is, tel I git back agin." + +Whoever _Jason_ was, they found him there +Still at the front-room window.--By his chair +Leaned a new pair of crutches; and from one +Knee down, a leg was bandaged.--"Jason done +That-air with one o' these-'ere tools _we_ call +A '_shin-hoe_'--but a _foot-adz_ mostly all +_Hardware_-store-keepers calls 'em."--(_Noey_ made +This explanation later.) + + Jason paid +But little notice to the boys as they +Came in the room:--An idle volume lay +Upon his lap--the only book in sight-- +And Johnty read the title,--"Light, More Light, +There's Danger in the Dark,"--though _first_ and best-- +In fact, the _whole_ of Jason's interest +Seemed centered on a little _dog_--one pet +Of Noey's all uncelebrated yet-- +Though _Jason_, certainly, avowed his worth, +And niched him over all the pets on earth-- +As the observant Johnty would relate +The _Jason_-episode, and imitate +The all-enthusiastic speech and air +Of Noey's kinsman and his tribute there:-- + + + + +"THAT LITTLE DOG" + +"That little dog 'ud scratch at that door +And go on a-whinin' two hours before +He'd ever let up! _There!_--Jane: Let him in.-- +(Hah, there, you little rat!) Look at him grin! + Come down off o' that!-- + W'y, look at him! (_Drat +You! you-rascal-you!_)--bring me that hat! +Look _out!_--He'll snap _you!_--_He_ wouldn't let +_You_ take it away from him, now you kin bet! +That little rascal's jist natchurly mean.-- +I tell you, I _never_ (_Git out!! _) never seen +A _spunkier_ little rip! (_Scratch to git in_, +And _now_ yer a-scratchin' to git _out_ agin! +Jane: Let him out!) Now, watch him from here +Out through the winder!--You notice one ear +Kindo' _in_ side-_out_, like he holds it?--Well, +_He's_ got a _tick_ in it--_I_ kin tell! + Yes, and he's cunnin'-- + Jist watch him a-runnin', +_Sidelin'_--see!--like he ain't '_plum'd true_' +And legs don't 'track' as they'd ort to do:-- +Plowin' his nose through the weeds--I jing! +Ain't he jist cuter'n anything! + +"W'y, that little dog's got _grown_-people's sense!-- +See how he gits out under the fence?-- +And watch him a-whettin' his hind-legs 'fore +His dead square run of a miled er more-- +'Cause _Noey_'s a-comin', and Trip allus knows +When _Noey_'s a-comin'--and off he goes!-- +Putts out to meet him and--_There they come now!_ +Well-sir! it's raially singalar how + That dog kin _tell_,-- + But he knows as well +When Noey's a-comin' home!--Reckon his _smell_ +'Ud carry two miled?--You needn't to _smile_-- +He runs to meet _him_, ever'-once-n-a-while, +Two miled and over--when he's slipped away +And left him at home here, as he's done to-day-- +'Thout ever knowin' where Noey wuz goin'-- +But that little dog allus hits the right way! +Hear him a-whinin' and scratchin' agin?-- +(_Little tormentin' fice!_) Jane: Let him in. + + "--You say he ain't _there?_-- + Well now, I declare!-- +Lem _me_ limp out and look! ... I wunder where-- +_Heuh_, Trip!--_Heuh_, Trip!--_Heuh_, Trip!... _There_-- +_There_ he is!--Little sneak!--What-a'-you-'bout?-- +_There_ he is--quiled up as meek as a mouse, +His tail turnt up like a teakittle-spout, +A-sunnin' hisse'f at the side o' the house! +_Next_ time you scratch, sir, you'll haf to git in, +My fine little feller, the best way you kin! +--Noey _he_ learns him sich capers!--And they-- +_Both_ of 'em's ornrier every day!-- +_Both_ tantalizin' and meaner'n sin-- +Allus a--(_Listen there!_)--Jane: Let him in. + +"--O! yer so _innocent!_ hangin' yer head!-- +(Drat ye! you'd _better_ git under the bed!) + --Listen at that!-- + He's tackled the cat!-- +Hah, there! you little rip! come out o' that!-- +Git yer blame little eyes scratched out +'Fore you know what yer talkin' about!-- +_Here!_ come away from there!--(Let him alone-- +He'll snap _you_, I tell ye, as quick as a bone!) +_Hi_, Trip!--_Hey_, here!--What-a'-you-'bout!-- +_Oo! ouch!_ 'Ll I'll be blamed!--_Blast ye!_ GIT OUT! +... O, it ain't nothin'--jist _scratched_ me, you see.-- +Hadn't no idy he'd try to bite _me_! +_Plague take him!_--Bet he'll not try _that_ agin!-- +Hear him yelp.--(_Pore feller!_) Jane: Let him in." + + + + +THE LOEHRS AND THE HAMMONDS + +"Hey, Bud! O Bud!" rang out a gleeful call,-- +"_The Loehrs is come to your house!_" And a small +But very much elated little chap, +In snowy linen-suit and tasseled cap, +Leaped from the back-fence just across the street +From Bixlers', and came galloping to meet +His equally delighted little pair +Of playmates, hurrying out to join him there-- +"_The Loehrs is come!--The Loehrs is come!_" his glee +Augmented to a pitch of ecstasy +Communicated wildly, till the cry +"_The Loehrs is come!_" in chorus quavered high +And thrilling as some paean of challenge or +Soul-stirring chant of armied conqueror. +And who this _avant courier_ of "the Loehrs"?-- +This happiest of all boys out-o'-doors-- +Who but Will Pierson, with his heart's excess +Of summer-warmth and light and breeziness! +"From our front winder I 'uz first to see +'Em all a-drivin' into town!" bragged he-- +"An' seen 'em turnin' up the alley where +_Your_ folks lives at. An' John an' Jake wuz there +Both in the wagon;--yes, an' Willy, too; +An' Mary--Yes, an' Edith--with bran-new +An' purtiest-trimmed hats 'at ever wuz!-- +An' Susan, an' Janey.--An' the _Hammonds-uz_ +In their fine buggy 'at they're ridin' roun' +So much, all over an' aroun' the town +An' _ever_'wheres,--them _city_-people who's +A-visutin' at Loehrs-uz!" + + Glorious news!-- +Even more glorious when verified +In the boys' welcoming eyes of love and pride, +As one by one they greeted their old friends +And neighbors.--Nor until their earth-life ends +Will that bright memory become less bright +Or dimmed indeed. + + ... Again, at candle-light, +The faces all are gathered. And how glad +The Mother's features, knowing that she had +Her dear, sweet Mary Loehr back again.-- +She always was so proud of her; and then +The dear girl, in return, was happy, too, +And with a heart as loving, kind and true +As that maturer one which seemed to blend +As one the love of mother and of friend. +From time to time, as hand-in-hand they sat, +The fair girl whispered something low, whereat +A tender, wistful look would gather in +The mother-eyes; and then there would begin +A sudden cheerier talk, directed to +The stranger guests--the man and woman who, +It was explained, were coming now to make +Their temporary home in town for sake +Of the wife's somewhat failing health. Yes, they +Were city-people, seeking rest this way, +The man said, answering a query made +By some well meaning neighbor--with a shade +Of apprehension in the answer.... No,-- +They had no _children_. As he answered so, +The man's arm went about his wife, and she +Leant toward him, with her eyes lit prayerfully: +Then she arose--he following--and bent +Above the little sleeping innocent +Within the cradle at the mother's side-- +He patting her, all silent, as she cried.-- +Though, haply, in the silence that ensued, +His musings made melodious interlude. + + In the warm, health-giving weather + My poor pale wife and I + Drive up and down the little town + And the pleasant roads thereby: + Out in the wholesome country + We wind, from the main highway, + In through the wood's green solitudes-- + Fair as the Lord's own Day. + + We have lived so long together. + And joyed and mourned as one, + That each with each, with a look for speech, + Or a touch, may talk as none + But Love's elect may comprehend-- + Why, the touch of her hand on mine + Speaks volume-wise, and the smile of her eyes, + To me, is a song divine. + + There are many places that lure us:-- + "The Old Wood Bridge" just west + Of town we know--and the creek below, + And the banks the boys love best: + And "Beech Grove," too, on the hill-top; + And "The Haunted House" beyond, + With its roof half off, and its old pump-trough + Adrift in the roadside pond. + + We find our way to "The Marshes"-- + At least where they used to be; + And "The Old Camp Grounds"; and "The Indian Mounds," + And the trunk of "The Council Tree:" + We have crunched and splashed through "Flint-bed Ford"; + And at "Old Big Bee-gum Spring" + We have stayed the cup, half lifted up. + Hearing the redbird sing. + + And then, there is "Wesley Chapel," + With its little graveyard, lone + At the crossroads there, though the sun sets fair + On wild-rose, mound and stone ... + A wee bed under the willows-- + My wife's hand on my own-- + And our horse stops, too ... And we hear the coo + Of a dove in undertone. + + The dusk, the dew, and the silence. + "Old Charley" turns his head + Homeward then by the pike again, + Though never a word is said-- + One more stop, and a lingering one-- + After the fields and farms,-- + At the old Toll Gate, with the woman await + With a little girl in her arms. + + +The silence sank--Floretty came to call +The children in the kitchen, where they all +Went helter-skeltering with shout and din +Enough to drown most sanguine silence in,-- +For well indeed they knew that summons meant +Taffy and popcorn--so with cheers they went. + + + + +THE HIRED MAN AND FLORETTY + +The Hired Man's supper, which he sat before, +In near reach of the wood-box, the stove-door +And one leaf of the kitchen-table, was +Somewhat belated, and in lifted pause +His dextrous knife was balancing a bit +Of fried mush near the port awaiting it. + +At the glad children's advent--gladder still +To find _him_ there--"Jest tickled fit to kill +To see ye all!" he said, with unctious cheer.-- +"I'm tryin'-like to he'p Floretty here +To git things cleared away and give ye room +Accordin' to yer stren'th. But I p'sume +It's a pore boarder, as the poet says, +That quarrels with his victuals, so I guess +I'll take another wedge o' that-air cake, +Florett', that you're a-_learnin_' how to bake." +He winked and feigned to swallow painfully.-- + +"Jest 'fore ye all come in, Floretty she +Was boastin' 'bout her _biscuits_--and they _air_ +As good--sometimes--as you'll find anywhere.-- +But, women gits to braggin' on their _bread_, +I'm s'picious 'bout their _pie_--as Danty said." +This raillery Floretty strangely seemed +To take as compliment, and fairly beamed +With pleasure at it all. + + --"Speakin' o' _bread_-- +When she come here to live," The Hired Man said,-- +"Never ben out o' _Freeport_ 'fore she come +Up here,--of course she needed '_sperience_ some.-- +So, one day, when yer Ma was goin' to set +The risin' fer some bread, she sent Florett +To borry _leaven_, 'crost at Ryans'--So, +She went and asked fer _twelve_.--She didn't _know_, +But thought, _whatever_ 'twuz, that she could keep +_One_ fer _herse'f_, she said. O she wuz deep!" + +Some little evidence of favor hailed +The Hired Man's humor; but it wholly failed +To touch the serious Susan Loehr, whose air +And thought rebuked them all to listening there +To her brief history of the _city_-man +And his pale wife--"A sweeter woman than +_She_ ever saw!"--So Susan testified,-- +And so attested all the Loehrs beside.-- +So entertaining was the history, that +The Hired Man, in the corner where he sat +In quiet sequestration, shelling corn, +Ceased wholly, listening, with a face forlorn +As Sorrow's own, while Susan, John and Jake +Told of these strangers who had come to make +Some weeks' stay in the town, in hopes to gain +Once more the health the wife had sought in vain: +Their doctor, in the city, used to know +The Loehrs--Dan and Rachel--years ago,-- +And so had sent a letter and request +For them to take a kindly interest +In favoring the couple all they could-- +To find some home-place for them, if they would, +Among their friends in town. He ended by +A dozen further lines, explaining why +His patient must have change of scene and air-- +New faces, and the simple friendships there +With _them_, which might, in time, make her forget +A grief that kept her ever brooding yet +And wholly melancholy and depressed,-- +Nor yet could she find sleep by night nor rest +By day, for thinking--thinking--thinking still \ +Upon a grief beyond the doctor's skill,-- +The death of her one little girl. + + "Pore thing!" +Floretty sighed, and with the turkey-wing +Brushed off the stove-hearth softly, and peered in +The kettle of molasses, with her thin +Voice wandering into song unconsciously-- +In purest, if most witless, sympathy.-- + + "'Then sleep no more: + Around thy heart + Some ten-der dream may i-dlee play. + But mid-night song, + With mad-jick art, + Will chase that dree muh-way!'" + +"That-air besetment of Floretty's," said +The Hired Man,--"_singin_--she _inhairited_,-- +Her _father_ wuz addicted--same as her-- +To singin'--yes, and played the dulcimer! +But--gittin' back,--I s'pose yer talkin' 'bout +Them _Hammondses_. Well, Hammond he gits out +_Pattents_ on things--inventions-like, I'm told-- +And's got more money'n a house could hold! +And yit he can't git up no pattent-right +To do away with _dyin'_.--And he might +Be worth a _million_, but he couldn't find +Nobody sellin' _health_ of any kind!... +But they's no thing onhandier fer _me_ +To use than other people's misery.-- +Floretty, hand me that-air skillet there +And lem me git 'er het up, so's them-air +Childern kin have their popcorn." + + It was good +To hear him now, and so the children stood +Closer about him, waiting. + + "Things to _eat_," +The Hired Man went on, "'s mighty hard to beat! +Now, when _I_ wuz a boy, we was so pore, +My parunts couldn't 'ford popcorn no more +To pamper _me_ with;--so, I hat to go +_Without_ popcorn--sometimes a _year_ er so!-- +And _suffer'n' saints!_ how hungry I would git +Fer jest one other chance--like this--at it! +Many and many a time I've _dreamp_', at night, +About popcorn,--all busted open white, +And hot, you know--and jest enough o' salt +And butter on it fer to find no fault-- +_Oomh!_--Well! as I was goin' on to say,-- +After a-_dreamin_' of it thataway, +_Then_ havin' to wake up and find it's all +A _dream_, and hain't got no popcorn at-tall, +Ner haint _had_ none--I'd think, '_Well, where's the use!_' +And jest lay back and sob the plaster'n' loose! +And I have _prayed_, what_ever_ happened, it +'Ud eether be popcorn er death!.... And yit +I've noticed--more'n likely so have you-- +That things don't happen when you _want_ 'em to." + +And thus he ran on artlessly, with speech +And work in equal exercise, till each +Tureen and bowl brimmed white. And then he greased +The saucers ready for the wax, and seized +The fragrant-steaming kettle, at a sign +Made by Floretty; and, each child in line, +He led out to the pump--where, in the dim +New coolness of the night, quite near to him +He felt Floretty's presence, fresh and sweet +As ... dewy night-air after kitchen-heat. + +There, still, with loud delight of laugh and jest, +They plied their subtle alchemy with zest-- +Till, sudden, high above their tumult, welled +Out of the sitting-room a song which held +Them stilled in some strange rapture, listening +To the sweet blur of voices chorusing:-- + + "'When twilight approaches the season + That ever is sacred to song, + Does some one repeat my name over, + And sigh that I tarry so long? + And is there a chord in the music + That's missed when my voice is away?-- + And a chord in each heart that awakens + Regret at my wearisome stay-ay-- + Regret at my wearisome stay.'" + +All to himself, The Hired Man thought--"Of course +_They'll_ sing _Floretty_ homesick!" + + ... O strange source +Of ecstasy! O mystery of Song!-- +To hear the dear old utterance flow along:-- + + "'Do they set me a chair near the table + When evening's home-pleasures are nigh?-- + When the candles are lit in the parlor. + And the stars in the calm azure sky.'"... + +Just then the moonlight sliced the porch slantwise, +And flashed in misty spangles in the eyes +Floretty clenched--while through the dark--"I jing!" +A voice asked, "Where's that song '_you'd_ learn to sing +Ef I sent you the _ballat_?'--which I done +Last I was home at Freeport.--S'pose you run +And git it--and we'll all go in to where +They'll know the notes and sing it fer ye there." +And up the darkness of the old stairway +Floretty fled, without a word to say-- +Save to herself some whisper muffled by +Her apron, as she wiped her lashes dry. + +Returning, with a letter, which she laid +Upon the kitchen-table while she made +A hasty crock of "float,"--poured thence into +A deep glass dish of iridescent hue +And glint and sparkle, with an overflow +Of froth to crown it, foaming white as snow.-- +And then--poundcake, and jelly-cake as rare, +For its delicious complement,--with air +Of Hebe mortalized, she led her van +Of votaries, rounded by The Hired Man. + + + + +THE EVENING COMPANY + +Within the sitting-room, the company +Had been increased in number. Two or three +Young couples had been added: Emma King, +Ella and Mary Mathers--all could sing +Like veritable angels--Lydia Martin, too, +And Nelly Millikan.--What songs they knew!-- + + _"'Ever of Thee--wherever I may be, + Fondly I'm drea-m-ing ever of thee!_'" + +And with their gracious voices blend the grace +Of Warsaw Barnett's tenor; and the bass +Unfathomed of Wick Chapman--Fancy still +Can _feel_, as well as _hear_ it, thrill on thrill, +Vibrating plainly down the backs of chairs +And through the wall and up the old hall-stairs.-- +Indeed young Chapman's voice especially +Attracted _Mr. Hammond_--For, said he, +Waiving the most Elysian sweetness of +The _ladies_' voices--altitudes above +The _man's_ for sweetness;--_but_--as _contrast_, would +Not Mr. Chapman be so very good +As, just now, to oblige _all_ with--in fact, +Some sort of _jolly_ song,--to counteract +In part, at least, the sad, pathetic trend +Of music _generally_. Which wish our friend +"The Noted Traveler" made second to +With heartiness--and so each, in review, +Joined in--until the radiant _basso_ cleared +His wholly unobstructed throat and peered +Intently at the ceiling--voice and eye +As opposite indeed as earth and sky.-- +Thus he uplifted his vast bass and let +It roam at large the memories booming yet: + + "'Old Simon the Cellarer keeps a rare store + Of Malmsey and Malvoi-sie, + Of Cyprus, and who can say how many more?-- + But a chary old so-u-l is he-e-ee-- + A chary old so-u-l is he! + Of hock and Canary he never doth fail; + And all the year 'round, there is brewing of ale;-- + Yet he never aileth, he quaintly doth say, + While he keeps to his sober six flagons a day.'" + +... And then the chorus--the men's voices all +_Warred_ in it--like a German Carnival.-- +Even _Mrs_. Hammond smiled, as in her youth, +Hearing her husband--And in veriest truth +"The Noted Traveler's" ever-present hat +Seemed just relaxed a little, after that, +As at conclusion of the Bacchic song +He stirred his "float" vehemently and long. + +Then Cousin Rufus with his flute, and art +Blown blithely through it from both soul and heart-- +Inspired to heights of mastery by the glad, +Enthusiastic audience he had +In the young ladies of a town that knew +No other flutist,--nay, nor _wanted_ to, +Since they had heard _his_ "Polly Hopkin's Waltz," +Or "Rickett's Hornpipe," with its faultless faults, +As rendered solely, he explained, "by ear," +Having but heard it once, Commencement Year, +At "Old Ann Arbor." + + Little Maymie now +Seemed "friends" with _Mr. Hammond_--anyhow, +Was lifted to his lap--where settled, she-- +Enthroned thus, in her dainty majesty, +Gained _universal_ audience--although +Addressing him alone:--"I'm come to show +You my new Red-blue pencil; and _she_ says"-- +(Pointing to _Mrs._ Hammond)--"that she guess' +You'll make a _picture_ fer me." + + "And what _kind_ +Of picture?" Mr. Hammond asked, inclined +To serve the child as bidden, folding square +The piece of paper she had brought him there.-- +"I don't know," Maymie said--"only ist make +A _little dirl_, like me!" + + He paused to take +A sharp view of the child, and then he drew-- +Awhile with red, and then awhile with blue-- +The outline of a little girl that stood +In converse with a wolf in a great wood; +And she had on a hood and cloak of red-- +As Maymie watched--"_Red Riding Hood!_" she said. +"And who's '_Red Riding Hood'?_" + + "W'y, don't _you_ know?" +Asked little Maymie-- + + But the man looked so +All uninformed, that little Maymie could +But tell him _all about_ Red Riding Hood. + + + + +MAYMIE'S STORY OF RED RIDING HOOD + +W'y, one time wuz a little-weenty dirl, +An' she wuz named Red Riding Hood, 'cause her-- +Her _Ma_ she maked a little red cloak fer her +'At turnt up over her head--An' it 'uz all +Ist one piece o' red cardinal 'at 's like +The drate-long stockin's the store-keepers has.-- +O! it 'uz purtiest cloak in all the world +An' _all_ this town er anywheres they is! +An' so, one day, her Ma she put it on +Red Riding Hood, she did--one day, she did-- +An' it 'uz _Sund'y_--'cause the little cloak +It 'uz too nice to wear ist _ever'_ day +An' _all_ the time!--An' so her Ma, she put +It on Red Riding Hood--an' telled her not +To dit no dirt on it ner dit it mussed +Ner nothin'! An'--an'--nen her Ma she dot +Her little basket out, 'at Old Kriss bringed +Her wunst--one time, he did. And nen she fill' +It full o' whole lots an' 'bundance o' good things t' eat +(Allus my Dran'ma _she_ says ''bundance,' too.) +An' so her Ma fill' little Red Riding Hood's +Nice basket all ist full o' dood things t' eat, +An' tell her take 'em to her old Dran'ma-- +An' not to _spill_ 'em, neever--'cause ef she +'Ud stump her toe an' spill 'em, her Dran'ma +She'll haf to _punish_ her! + + An' nen--An' so +Little Red Riding Hood she p'omised she +'Ud be all careful nen an' cross' her heart +'At she wont run an' spill 'em all fer six-- +Five--ten--two-hundred-bushel-dollars-gold! +An' nen she kiss her Ma doo'-bye an' went +A-skippin' off--away fur off frough the +Big woods, where her Dran'ma she live at.--No!-- +She didn't do _a-skippin'_, like I said:-- +She ist went _walkin'_--careful-like an' slow-- +Ist like a little lady--walkin' 'long +As all polite an' nice--an' slow--an' straight-- +An' turn her toes--ist like she's marchin' in +The Sund'y-School k-session! + + An'--an'--so +She 'uz a-doin' along--an' doin' along-- +On frough the drate big woods--'cause her Dran'ma +She live 'way, 'way fur off frough the big woods +From _her_ Ma's house. So when Red Riding Hood +She dit to do there, allus have most fun-- +When she do frough the drate big woods, you know.-- +'Cause she ain't feared a bit o' anything! +An' so she sees the little hoppty-birds +'At's in the trees, an' flyin' all around, +An' singin' dlad as ef their parunts said +They'll take 'em to the magic-lantern show! +An' she 'ud pull the purty flowers an' things +A-growin' round the stumps--An' she 'ud ketch +The purty butterflies, an' drasshoppers, +An' stick pins frough 'em--No!--I ist _said_ that!-- +'Cause she's too dood an' kind an' 'bedient +To _hurt_ things thataway.--She'd _ketch_ 'em, though, +An' ist _play_ wiv 'em ist a little while, +An' nen she'd let 'em fly away, she would, +An' ist skip on adin to her Dran'ma's. + +An' so, while she uz doin' 'long an' 'long, +First thing you know they 'uz a drate big old +Mean wicked Wolf jumped out 'at wanted t' eat +Her up, but _dassent_ to--'cause wite clos't there +They wuz a Man a-choppin' wood, an' you +Could _hear_ him.--So the old Wolf he 'uz _'feared_ +Only to ist be _kind_ to her.--So he +Ist 'tended like he wuz dood friends to her +An' says "Dood-morning, little Red Riding Hood!"-- +All ist as kind! + + An' nen Riding Hood +She say "Dood-morning," too--all kind an' nice-- +Ist like her Ma she learn'--No!--mustn't say +"Learn," cause "_Learn_" it's unproper.--So she say +It like her _Ma_ she "_teached_" her.--An'--so she +Ist says "Dood-morning" to the Wolf--'cause she +Don't know ut-tall 'at he's a _wicked_ Wolf +An' want to eat her up! + + Nen old Wolf smile +An' say, so kind: "Where air you doin' at?" +Nen little Red Riding Hood she says: "I'm doin' +To my Dran'ma's, 'cause my Ma say I might." +Nen, when she tell him that, the old Wolf he +Ist turn an' light out frough the big thick woods, +Where she can't see him any more. An so +She think he's went to _his_ house--but he haint,-- +He's went to her Dran'ma's, to be there first-- +An' _ketch_ her, ef she don't watch mighty sharp +What she's about! + + An' nen when the old Wolf +Dit to her Dran'ma's house, he's purty smart,-- +An' so he 'tend-like _he's_ Red Riding Hood, +An' knock at th' door. An' Riding Hood's Dran'ma +She's sick in bed an' can't come to the door +An' open it. So th' old Wolf knock _two_ times. +An' nen Red Riding Hood's Dran'ma she says +"Who's there?" she says. An' old Wolf 'tends-like he's +Little Red Riding Hood, you know, an' make' +His voice soun' ist like hers, an' says: "It's me, +Dran'ma--an' I'm Red Riding Hood an' I'm +Ist come to see you." + + Nen her old Dran'ma +She think it _is_ little Red Riding Hood, +An' so she say: "Well, come in nen an' make +You'se'f at home," she says, "'cause I'm down sick +In bed, and got the 'ralgia, so's I can't +Dit up an' let ye in." + + An' so th' old Wolf +Ist march' in nen an' shet the door adin, +An' _drowl_, he did, an' _splunge_ up on the bed +An' et up old Miz Riding Hood 'fore she +Could put her specs on an' see who it wuz.-- +An' so she never knowed _who_ et her up! + +An' nen the wicked Wolf he ist put on +Her nightcap, an' all covered up in bed-- +Like he wuz _her_, you know. + + Nen, purty soon +Here come along little Red Riding Hood, +An' _she_ knock' at the door. An' old Wolf 'tend +Like _he's_ her Dran'ma; an' he say, "Who's there?" +Ist like her Dran'ma say, you know. An' so +Little Red Riding Hood she say "It's _me_, +Dran'ma--an' I'm Red Riding Hood and I'm +Ist come to _see_ you." + + An' nen old Wolf nen +He cough an' say: "Well, come in nen an' make +You'se'f at home," he says, "'cause I'm down sick +In bed, an' got the 'ralgia, so's I can't +Dit up an' let ye in." + + An' so she think +It's her Dran'ma a-talkin'.--So she ist +Open' the door an' come in, an' set down +Her basket, an' taked off her things, an' bringed +A chair an' clumbed up on the bed, wite by +The old big Wolf she thinks is her Dran'ma.-- +Only she thinks the old Wolf's dot whole lots +More bigger ears, an' lots more whiskers, too, +Than her Dran'ma; an' so Red Riding Hood +She's kindo' skeered a little. So she says +"Oh, Dran'ma, what _big eyes_ you dot!" An' nen +The old Wolf says: "They're ist big thataway +'Cause I'm so dlad to see you!" + + Nen she says,-- +"Oh, Dran'ma, what a drate big nose you dot!" +Nen th' old Wolf says: "It's ist big thataway +Ist 'cause I smell the dood things 'at you bringed +Me in the basket!" + + An' nen Riding Hood +She say "Oh-me-oh-_my_! Dran'ma! what big +White long sharp teeth you dot!" + + Nen old Wolf says: +"Yes--an' they're thataway," he says--an' drowled-- +"They're thataway," he says, "to _eat_ you wiv!" +An' nen he ist _jump_' at her.-- + + But she _scream_'-- +An' _scream_', she did--So's 'at the Man +'At wuz a-choppin' wood, you know,--_he_ hear, +An' come a-runnin' in there wiv his ax; +An', 'fore the old Wolf know' what he's about, +He split his old brains out an' killed him s'quick +It make' his head swim!--An' Red Riding Hood +She wuzn't hurt at all! + + An' the big Man +He tooked her all safe home, he did, an' tell +Her Ma she's all right an' ain't hurt at all +An' old Wolf's dead an' killed--an' ever'thing!-- +So her Ma wuz so tickled an' so proud, +She divved _him_ all the dood things t' eat they wuz +'At's in the basket, an' she tell him 'at +She's much oblige', an' say to "call adin." +An' story's honest _truth_--an' all _so_, too! + + + + +LIMITATIONS OF GENIUS + +The audience entire seemed pleased--indeed +_Extremely_ pleased. And little Maymie, freed +From her task of instructing, ran to show +Her wondrous colored picture to and fro +Among the company. + + "And how comes it," said +Some one to Mr. Hammond, "that, instead +Of the inventor's life you did not choose +The _artist's?_--since the world can better lose +A cutting-box or reaper than it can +A noble picture painted by a man +Endowed with gifts this drawing would suggest"-- +Holding the picture up to show the rest. +"_There now!_" chimed in the wife, her pale face lit +Like winter snow with sunrise over it,-- +"That's what _I'm_ always asking him.--But _he_-- +_Well_, as he's answering _you_, he answers _me_,-- +With that same silent, suffocating smile +He's wearing now!" + + For quite a little while +No further speech from anyone, although +All looked at Mr. Hammond and that slow, +Immutable, mild smile of his. And then +The encouraged querist asked him yet again +_Why was it_, and etcetera--with all +The rest, expectant, waiting 'round the wall,-- +Until the gentle Mr. Hammond said +He'd answer with a "_parable_," instead-- +About "a dreamer" that he used to know-- +"An artist"--"master"--_all_--in _embryo_. + + + + +MR. HAMMOND'S PARABLE + +THE DREAMER + +I + +He was a Dreamer of the Days: + Indolent as a lazy breeze +Of midsummer, in idlest ways + Lolling about in the shade of trees. +The farmer turned--as he passed him by + Under the hillside where he kneeled +Plucking a flower--with scornful eye + And rode ahead in the harvest field +Muttering--"Lawz! ef that-air shirk + Of a boy was mine fer a week er so, +He'd quit _dreamin'_ and git to work + And _airn_ his livin'--er--Well! _I_ know!" +And even kindlier rumor said, +Tapping with finger a shaking head,-- +"Got such a curious kind o' way-- +Wouldn't surprise me much, I say!" + +Lying limp, with upturned gaze +Idly dreaming away his days. +No companions? Yes, a book +Sometimes under his arm he took +To read aloud to a lonesome brook. + And school-boys, truant, once had heard +A strange voice chanting, faint and dim-- +Followed the echoes, and found it him, + Perched in a tree-top like a bird, +Singing, clean from the highest limb; +And, fearful and awed, they all slipped by +To wonder in whispers if he could fly. +"Let him alone!" his father said + When the old schoolmaster came to say, +"He took no part in his books to-day-- +Only the lesson the readers read.-- + His mind seems sadly going astray!" +"Let him alone!" came the mournful tone, +And the father's grief in his sad eyes shone-- +Hiding his face in his trembling hand, +Moaning, "Would I could understand! +But as heaven wills it I accept +Uncomplainingly!" So he wept. + +Then went "The Dreamer" as he willed, +As uncontrolled as a light sail filled +Flutters about with an empty boat +Loosed from its moorings and afloat: +Drifted out from the busy quay +Of dull school-moorings listlessly; +Drifted off on the talking breeze, +All alone with his reveries; +Drifted on, as his fancies wrought-- +Out on the mighty gulfs of thought. + + +II + +The farmer came in the evening gray + And took the bars of the pasture down; +Called to the cows in a coaxing way, +"Bess" and "Lady" and "Spot" and "Brown," +While each gazed with a wide-eyed stare, +As though surprised at his coming there-- +Till another tone, in a higher key, +Brought their obeyance lothfully. + + Then, as he slowly turned and swung +The topmost bar to its proper rest, + Something fluttered along and clung +An instant, shivering at his breast-- + A wind-scared fragment of legal cap, +Which darted again, as he struck his hand + On his sounding chest with a sudden slap, +And hurried sailing across the land. +But as it clung he had caught the glance +Of a little penciled countenance, +And a glamour of written words; and hence, +A minute later, over the fence, +"Here and there and gone astray +Over the hills and far away," +He chased it into a thicket of trees +And took it away from the captious breeze. + +A scrap of paper with a rhyme +Scrawled upon it of summertime: +A pencil-sketch of a dairy-maid, +Under a farmhouse porch's shade, +Working merrily; and was blent +With her glad features such sweet content, +That a song she sung in the lines below +Seemed delightfully _apropos_:-- + +SONG + + "Why do I sing--Tra-la-la-la-la! + Glad as a King?--Tra-la-la-la-la! + Well, since you ask,-- + I have such a pleasant task, + I can not help but sing! + + "Why do I smile--Tra-la-la-la-la! + Working the while?--Tra-la-la-la-la! + Work like this is play,-- + So I'm playing all the day-- + I can not help but smile! + + "So, If you please--Tra-la-la-la-la! + Live at your ease!--Tra-la-la-la-la! + You've only got to turn, + And, you see, its bound to churn-- + I can not help but please!" + +The farmer pondered and scratched his head, + Reading over each mystic word.-- +"Some o' the Dreamer's work!" he said-- + "Ah, here's more--and name and date +In his hand-write'!"--And the good man read,-- +"'Patent applied for, July third, + Eighteen hundred and forty-eight'!" +The fragment fell from his nerveless grasp-- +His awed lips thrilled with the joyous gasp: + "I see the p'int to the whole concern,-- + He's studied out a patent churn!" + + + + +FLORETTY'S MUSICAL CONTRIBUTION + +All seemed delighted, though the elders more, +Of course, than were the children.--Thus, before +Much interchange of mirthful compliment, +The story-teller said _his_ stories "went" +(Like a bad candle) _best_ when they went _out_,-- +And that some sprightly music, dashed about, +Would _wholly_ quench his "glimmer," and inspire +Far brighter lights. + + And, answering this desire, +The flutist opened, in a rapturous strain +Of rippling notes--a perfect April-rain +Of melody that drenched the senses through;-- +Then--gentler--gentler--as the dusk sheds dew, +It fell, by velvety, staccatoed halts, +Swooning away in old "Von Weber's Waltz." +Then the young ladies sang "Isle of the Sea"-- +In ebb and flow and wave so billowy,-- +Only with quavering breath and folded eyes +The listeners heard, buoyed on the fall and rise +Of its insistent and exceeding stress +Of sweetness and ecstatic tenderness ... +With lifted finger _yet_, Remembrance--List!-- +"_Beautiful isle of the sea!_" wells in a mist +Of tremulous ... + + ... After much whispering +Among the children, Alex came to bring +Some kind of _letter_--as it seemed to be-- +To Cousin Rufus. This he carelessly +Unfolded--reading to himself alone,-- +But, since its contents became, later, known, +And no one "_plagued_ so _awful_ bad," the same +May here be given--of course without full name, +Fac-simile, or written kink or curl +Or clue. It read:-- + + "Wild Roved an indian Girl + Brite al Floretty" + deer freind + I now take +*this* These means to send that _Song_ to you & make +my Promus good to you in the Regards +Of doing What i Promust afterwards, +the _notes_ & _Words_ is both here _Printed_ SOS +you *kin* can git _uncle Mart_ to read you *them* those +& cousin Rufus you can git to _Play_ +the _notes_ fur you on eny Plezunt day +His Legul Work aint *Pressin* Pressing. + Ever thine + As shore as the Vine + doth the Stump intwine + thou art my Lump of Sackkerrine + Rinaldo Rinaldine + the Pirut in Captivity. + + ... There dropped +Another square scrap.--But the hand was stopped +That reached for it--Floretty suddenly +Had set a firm foot on her property-- +Thinking it was the _letter_, not the _song_,-- +But blushing to discover she was wrong, +When, with all gravity of face and air, +Her precious letter _handed_ to her there +By Cousin Rufus left her even more +In apprehension than she was before. +But, testing his unwavering, kindly eye, +She seemed to put her last suspicion by, +And, in exchange, handed the song to him.-- + +A page torn from a song-book: Small and dim +Both notes and words were--but as plain as day +They seemed to him, as he began to play-- +And plain to _all_ the singers,--as he ran +An airy, warbling prelude, then began +Singing and swinging in so blithe a strain, +That every voice rang in the old refrain: +From the beginning of the song, clean through, +Floretty's features were a study to +The flutist who "read _notes_" so readily, +Yet read so little of the mystery +Of that face of the girl's.--Indeed _one_ thing +Bewildered him quite into worrying, +And that was, noticing, throughout it all, +The Hired Man shrinking closer to the wall, +She ever backing toward him through the throng +Of barricading children--till the song +Was ended, and at last he saw her near +Enough to reach and take him by the ear +And pinch it just a pang's worth of her ire +And leave it burning like a coal of fire. +He noticed, too, in subtle pantomime +She seemed to dust him off, from time to time; +And when somebody, later, asked if she +Had never heard the song before--"What! _me?_" +She said--then blushed again and smiled,-- +"I've knowed that song sence _Adam_ was a child!-- +It's jes a joke o' this-here man's.--He's learned +To _read_ and _write_ a little, and its turned +His fool-head some--That's all!" + + And then some one +Of the loud-wrangling boys said--"_Course_ they's none +No more, _these_ days!--They's Fairies _ust_ to be, +But they're all dead, a hunderd years!" said he. + +"Well, there's where you're _mustakened_!"--in reply +They heard Bud's voice, pitched sharp and thin and high.-- + +"An' how you goin' to _prove_ it!" + + "Well, I _kin_!" +Said Bud, with emphasis,--"They's one lives in +Our garden--and I _see_ 'im wunst, wiv my +Own eyes--_one_ time I did." + + "_Oh, what a lie_!" +--"'_Sh!_'" + + "Well, nen," said the skeptic--seeing there +The older folks attracted--"Tell us _where_ +You saw him, an' all _'bout_ him!' + + "Yes, my son.-- +If you tell 'stories,' you may tell us one," +The smiling father said, while Uncle Mart, +Behind him, winked at Bud, and pulled apart +His nose and chin with comical grimace-- +Then sighed aloud, with sanctimonious face,-- + "'_How good and comely it is to see + Children and parents in friendship agree!_'-- +You fire away, Bud, on your Fairy-tale-- +Your _Uncle's_ here to back you!" + + Somewhat pale, +And breathless as to speech, the little man +Gathered himself. And thus his story ran. + + + + +BUD'S FAIRY-TALE + +Some peoples thinks they ain't no Fairies _now_ +No more yet!--But they _is_, I bet! 'Cause ef +They _wuzn't_ Fairies, nen I' like to know +Who'd w'ite 'bout Fairies in the books, an' tell +What Fairies _does_, an' how their _picture_ looks, +An' all an' ever'thing! W'y, ef they don't +Be Fairies anymore, nen little boys +'U'd ist _sleep_ when they go to sleep an' wont +Have ist no dweams at all,--'Cause Fairies--_good_ +Fairies--they're a-purpose to make dweams! +But they _is_ Fairies--an' I _know_ they is! +'Cause one time wunst, when its all Summertime, +An' don't haf to be no fires in the stove +Er fireplace to keep warm wiv--ner don't haf +To wear old scwatchy flannen shirts at all, +An' aint no fweeze--ner cold--ner snow!--An'--an' +Old skweeky twees got all the gween leaves on +An' ist keeps noddin', noddin' all the time, +Like they 'uz lazy an' a-twyin' to go +To sleep an' couldn't, 'cause the wind won't quit +A-blowin' in 'em, an' the birds won't stop +A-singin' so's they _kin_.--But twees _don't_ sleep, +I guess! But _little boys_ sleeps--an' _dweams_, too.-- +An' that's a sign they's Fairies. + + So, one time, +When I ben playin' "Store" wunst over in +The shed of their old stable, an' Ed Howard +He maked me quit a-bein' pardners, 'cause +I dwinked the 'tend-like sody-water up +An' et the shore-nuff cwackers.--W'y, nen I +Clumbed over in our garden where the gwapes +Wuz purt'-nigh ripe: An' I wuz ist a-layin' +There on th' old cwooked seat 'at Pa maked in +Our arber,--an' so I 'uz layin' there +A-whittlin' beets wiv my new dog-knife, an' +A-lookin' wite up through the twimbly leaves-- +An' wuzn't 'sleep at all!--An'-sir!--first thing +You know, a little _Fairy_ hopped out there! +A _leetle-teenty Fairy!--hope-may-die!_ +An' he look' down at me, he did--An' he +Ain't bigger'n a _yellerbird!_--an' he +Say "Howdy-do!" he did--an' I could _hear_ +Him--ist as _plain!_ + + Nen _I_ say "Howdy-do!" +An' he say "_I'm_ all hunkey, Nibsey; how +Is _your_ folks comin' on?" + + An' nen I say +"My name ain't '_Nibsey_,' neever--my name's _Bud_. +An' what's _your_ name?" I says to him. + + An'he +Ist laugh an' say "'_Bud's_' awful _funny_ name!" +An' he ist laid back on a big bunch o' gwapes +An' laugh' an' laugh', he did--like somebody +'Uz tick-el-un his feet! + + An' nen I say-- +"What's _your_ name," nen I say, "afore you bust +Yo'-se'f a-laughin' 'bout _my_ name?" I says. +An' nen he dwy up laughin'--kindo' mad-- +An' say "W'y, _my_ name's _Squidjicum_," he says. +An' nen _I_ laugh an' say--"_Gee!_ what a name!" +An' when I make fun of his name, like that, +He ist git awful mad an' spunky, an' +'Fore you know, he ist gwabbed holt of a vine-- +A big long vine 'at's danglin' up there, an' +He ist helt on wite tight to that, an' down +He swung quick past my face, he did, an' ist +Kicked at me hard's he could! + + But I'm too quick +Fer _Mr. Squidjicum!_ I ist weached out +An' ketched him, in my hand--an' helt him, too, +An' _squeezed_ him, ist like little wobins when +They can't fly yet an' git flopped out their nest. +An' nen I turn him all wound over, an' +Look at him clos't, you know--wite clos't,--'cause ef +He _is_ a Fairy, w'y, I want to see +The _wings_ he's got--But he's dwessed up so fine +'At I can't _see_ no wings.--An' all the time +He's twyin' to kick me yet: An' so I take +F'esh holts an' _squeeze_ agin--an' harder, too; +An' I says, "_Hold up, Mr. Squidjicum!_-- +You're kickin' the w'ong man!" I says; an' nen +I ist _squeeze' him_, purt'-nigh my _best_, I did-- +An' I heerd somepin' bust!--An' nen he cwied +An' says, "You better look out what you're doin'!-- +You' bust' my spiderweb-suspen'ners, an' +You' got my woseleaf-coat all cwinkled up +So's I can't go to old Miss Hoodjicum's +Tea-party, 's'afternoon!" + + An' nen I says-- +"Who's 'old Miss Hoodjicum'?" I says + + An'he +Says "Ef you lemme loose I'll tell you." + + So +I helt the little skeezics 'way fur out +In one hand--so's he can't jump down t' th' ground +Wivout a-gittin' all stove up: an' nen +I says, "You're loose now.--Go ahead an' tell +'Bout the 'tea-party' where you're goin' at +So awful fast!" I says. + + An' nen he say,-- +"No use to _tell_ you 'bout it, 'cause you won't +Believe it, 'less you go there your own se'f +An' see it wiv your own two eyes!" he says. +An' _he_ says: "Ef you lemme _shore-nuff_ loose, +An' p'omise 'at you'll keep wite still, an' won't +Tetch nothin' 'at you see--an' never tell +Nobody in the world--an' lemme loose-- +W'y, nen I'll _take_ you there!" + + But I says, "Yes +An' ef I let you loose, you'll _run!_" I says. +An' he says "No, I won't!--I hope may die!" +Nen I says, "Cwoss your heart you won't!" + + An'he +Ist cwoss his heart; an' nen I weach an' set +The little feller up on a long vine-- +An' he 'uz so tickled to git loose agin, +He gwab' the vine wiv boff his little hands +An' ist take an' turn in, he did, an' skin +'Bout forty-'leven cats! + + Nen when he git +Through whirlin' wound the vine, an' set on top +Of it agin, w'y nen his "woseleaf-coat" +He bwag so much about, it's ist all tored +Up, an' ist hangin' strips an' rags--so he +Look like his Pa's a dwunkard. An' so nen +When he see what he's done--a-actin' up +So smart,--he's awful mad, I guess; an' ist +Pout out his lips an' twis' his little face +Ist ugly as he kin, an' set an' tear +His whole coat off--an' sleeves an' all.--An' nen +He wad it all togevver an' ist _throw_ +It at me ist as hard as he kin dwive! + +An' when I weach to ketch him, an' 'uz goin' +To give him 'nuvver squeezin', _he ist flewed +Clean up on top the arber!_--'Cause, you know, +They _wuz_ wings on him--when he tored his _coat_ +Clean off--they _wuz_ wings _under there_. But they +Wuz purty wobbly-like an' wouldn't work +Hardly at all--'Cause purty soon, when I +Throwed clods at him, an' sticks, an' got him shooed +Down off o' there, he come a-floppin' down +An' lit k-bang! on our old chicken-coop, +An' ist laid there a-whimper'n' like a child! +An' I tiptoed up wite clos't, an' I says "What's +The matter wiv ye, Squidjicum?" + + An'he +Says: "Dog-gone! when my wings gits stwaight agin, +Where you all _cwumpled_ 'em," he says, "I bet +I'll ist fly clean away an' won't take you +To old Miss Hoodjicum's at all!" he says. +An' nen I ist weach out wite quick, I did, +An' gwab the sassy little snipe agin-- +Nen tooked my topstwing an' tie down his wings +So's he _can't_ fly, 'less'n I want him to! +An' nen I says: "Now, Mr. Squidjicum, +You better ist light out," I says, "to old +Miss Hoodjicum's, an' show _me_ how to git +There, too," I says; "er ef you don't," I says, +"I'll climb up wiv you on our buggy-shed +An' push you off!" I says. + + An nen he say +All wight, he'll show me there; an' tell me nen +To set him down wite easy on his feet, +An' loosen up the stwing a little where +It cut him under th' arms. An' nen he says, +"Come on!" he says; an' went a-limpin' 'long +The garden-path--an' limpin' 'long an' 'long +Tel--purty soon he come on 'long to where's +A grea'-big cabbage-leaf. An' he stoop down +An' say "Come on inunder here wiv me!" +So _I_ stoop down an' crawl inunder there, +Like he say. + + An' inunder there's a grea' +Big clod, they is--a awful grea' big clod! +An' nen he says, "_Roll this-here clod away!_" +An' so I roll' the clod away. An' nen +It's all wet, where the dew'z inunder where +The old clod wuz,--an' nen the Fairy he +Git on the wet-place: Nen he say to me +"Git on the wet-place, too!" An' nen he say, +"Now hold yer breff an' shet yer eyes!" he says, +"Tel I say _Squinchy-winchy!_" Nen he say-- +Somepin _in Dutch_, I guess.--An' nen I felt +Like we 'uz sinkin' down--an' sinkin' down!-- +Tel purty soon the little Fairy weach +An' pinch my nose an' yell at me an' say, +"_Squinchy-winchy! Look wherever you please!_" +Nen when I looked--Oh! they 'uz purtyest place +Down there you ever saw in all the World!-- +They 'uz ist _flowers_ an' _woses_--yes, an' _twees_ +Wiv _blossoms_ on an' _big ripe apples_ boff! +An' butterflies, they wuz--an' hummin'-birds-- +An' _yellow_birds an' _blue_birds--yes, an' _red!_-- +An' ever'wheres an' all awound 'uz vines +Wiv ripe p'serve-pears on 'em!--Yes, an' all +An' ever'thing 'at's ever gwowin' in +A garden--er canned up--all ripe at wunst!-- +It wuz ist like a garden--only it +'Uz _little_ tit o' garden--'bout big wound +As ist our twun'el-bed is.--An' all wound +An' wound the little garden's a gold fence-- +An' little gold gate, too--an' ash-hopper +'At's all gold, too--an' ist full o' gold ashes! +An' wite in th' middle o' the garden wuz +A little gold house, 'at's ist 'bout as big +As ist a bird-cage is: An' _in_ the house +They 'uz whole-lots _more_ Fairies there--'cause I +Picked up the little house, an 'peeked in at +The winders, an' I see 'em all in there +Ist _buggin_' wound! An' Mr. Squidjicum +He twy to make me quit, but I gwab _him_, +An' poke him down the chimbly, too, I did!-- +An' y'ort to see _him_ hop out 'mongst 'em there! +Ist like he 'uz the boss an' ist got back!-- +_"Hain't ye got on them-air dew-dumplin's yet?"_ +He says. + + An' they says no. + + An' nen he says +"_Better git at 'em nen!_" he says, "_wite quick-- +'Cause old Miss Hoodjicum's a-comin'!_" + + Nen +They all set wound a little gold tub--an' +All 'menced a-peelin' dewdwops, ist like they +'Uz _peaches_.--An', it looked so funny, I +Ist laugh' out loud, an' _dwopped_ the little house,-- +An' 't busted like a soap-bubble!--An't skeered +Me so, I--I--I--I,--it skeered me so, +I--ist _waked_ up.--No! I _ain't_ ben _asleep_ +An' _dream_ it all, like _you_ think,--but it's shore +Fer-certain _fact_ an' cwoss my heart it is! + + + + +A DELICIOUS INTERRUPTION + +All were quite gracious in their plaudits of +Bud's Fairy; but another stir above +That murmur was occasioned by a sweet +Young lady-caller, from a neighboring street, +Who rose reluctantly to say good-night +To all the pleasant friends and the delight +Experienced,--as she had promised sure +To be back home by nine. Then paused, demure, +And wondered was it _very_ dark.--Oh, _no!_-- +She had _come_ by herself and she could go +Without an _escort_. Ah, you sweet girls all! +What young gallant but comes at such a call, +Your most abject of slaves! Why, there were three +Young men, and several men of family, +Contesting for the honor--which at last +Was given to Cousin Rufus; and he cast +A kingly look behind him, as the pair +Vanished with laughter in the darkness there. + +As order was restored, with everything +Suggestive, in its way, of "romancing," +Some one observed that _now_ would be the chance +For _Noey_ to relate a circumstance +That _he_--the very specious rumor went-- +Had been eye-witness of, by accident. +Noey turned pippin-crimson; then turned pale +As death; then turned to flee, without avail.-- +"_There!_ head him off! _Now!_ hold him in his chair!-- +Tell us the Serenade-tale, now, Noey.--_There!_" + + + + +NOEY'S NIGHT-PIECE + +"They ain't much 'tale' about it!" Noey said.-- +"K'tawby grapes wuz gittin' good-n-red +I rickollect; and Tubb Kingry and me +'Ud kindo' browse round town, daytime, to see +What neighbers 'peared to have the most to spare +'At wuz git-at-able and no dog there +When we come round to git 'em, say 'bout ten +O'clock at night when mostly old folks then +Wuz snorin' at each other like they yit +Helt some old grudge 'at never slep' a bit. +Well, at the _Pars'nige_--ef ye'll call to mind,-- +They's 'bout the biggest grape-arber you'll find +'Most anywheres.--And mostly there, we knowed +They wuz _k'tawbies_ thick as ever growed-- +And more'n they'd _p'serve_.--Besides I've heerd +Ma say k'tawby-grape-p'serves jes 'peared +A waste o' sugar, anyhow!--And so +My conscience stayed outside and lem me go +With Tubb, one night, the back-way, clean up through +That long black arber to the end next to +The house, where the k'tawbies, don't you know, +Wuz thickest. And t'uz lucky we went _slow_,-- +Fer jest as we wuz cropin' tords the gray- +End, like, of the old arber--heerd Tubb say +In a skeered whisper, 'Hold up! They's some one +Jes slippin' in here!--and _looks like a gun_ +He's carryin'!' I _golly!_ we both spread +Out flat aginst the ground! + + "'What's that?' Tubb said.-- +And jest then--'_plink! plunk! plink!_' we heerd something +Under the back-porch-winder.--Then, i jing! +Of course we rickollected 'bout the young +School-mam 'at wuz a-boardin' there, and sung, +And played on the melodium in the choir.-- +And she 'uz 'bout as purty to admire +As any girl in town!--the fac's is, she +Jest _wuz_, them times, to a dead certainty, +The belle o' this-here bailywick!--But--Well,-- +I'd best git back to what I'm tryin' to tell:-- +It wuz some feller come to serenade +Miss Wetherell: And there he plunked and played +His old guitar, and sung, and kep' his eye +Set on her winder, blacker'n the sky!-- +And black it _stayed_.--But mayby she wuz 'way +From home, er wore out--bein' _Saturday!_ + +"It _seemed_ a good-'eal _longer_, but I _know_ +He sung and plunked there half a' hour er so +Afore, it 'peared like, he could ever git +His own free qualified consents to quit +And go off 'bout his business. When he went +I bet you could a-bought him fer a cent! + +"And now, behold ye all!--as Tubb and me +Wuz 'bout to raise up,--right in front we see +A feller slippin' out the arber, square +Smack under that-air little winder where +The _other_ feller had been standin'.--And +The thing he wuz a-carryin' in his hand +Wuzn't no _gun_ at all!--It wuz a _flute_,-- +And _whoop-ee!_ how it did git up and toot +And chirp and warble, tel a mockin'-bird +'Ud dast to never let hisse'f be heerd +Ferever, after sich miracalous, high +Jim-cracks and grand skyrootics played there by +Yer Cousin Rufus!--Yes-sir; it wuz him!-- +And what's more,--all a-suddent that-air dim +Dark winder o' Miss Wetherell's wuz lit +Up like a' oyshture-sign, and under it +We see him sort o' wet his lips and smile +Down 'long his row o' dancin' fingers, while +He kindo' stiffened up and kinked his breath +And everlastin'ly jest blowed the peth +Out o' that-air old one-keyed flute o' his. +And, bless their hearts, that's all the 'tale' they is!" + +And even as Noey closed, all radiantly +The unconscious hero of the history, +Returning, met a perfect driving storm +Of welcome--a reception strangely warm +And _unaccountable_, to _him_, although +Most _gratifying_,--and he told them so. +"I only urge," he said, "my right to be +Enlightened." And a voice said: "_Certainly:_-- +During your absence we agreed that you +Should tell us all a story, old or new, +Just in the immediate happy frame of mind +We knew you would return in." + + So, resigned, +The ready flutist tossed his hat aside-- +Glanced at the children, smiled, and thus complied. + + + + +COUSIN RUFUS' STORY + +My little story, Cousin Rufus said, +Is not so much a story as a fact. +It is about a certain willful boy-- +An aggrieved, unappreciated boy, +Grown to dislike his own home very much, +By reason of his parents being not +At all up to his rigid standard and +Requirements and exactions as a son +And disciplinarian. + + So, sullenly +He brooded over his disheartening +Environments and limitations, till, +At last, well knowing that the outside world +Would yield him favors never found at home, +He rose determinedly one July dawn-- +Even before the call for breakfast--and, +Climbing the alley-fence, and bitterly +Shaking his clenched fist at the woodpile, he +Evanished down the turnpike.--Yes: he had, +Once and for all, put into execution +His long low-muttered threatenings--He had +_Run off!_--He had--had run away from home! + +His parents, at discovery of his flight, +Bore up first-rate--especially his Pa,-- +Quite possibly recalling his own youth, +And therefrom predicating, by high noon, +The absent one was very probably +Disporting his nude self in the delights +Of the old swimmin'-hole, some hundred yards +Below the slaughter-house, just east of town. +The stoic father, too, in his surmise +Was accurate--For, lo! the boy was there! + +And there, too, he remained throughout the day-- +Save at one starving interval in which +He clad his sunburnt shoulders long enough +To shy across a wheatfield, shadow-like, +And raid a neighboring orchard--bitterly, +And with spasmodic twitchings of the lip, +Bethinking him how all the other boys +Had _homes_ to go to at the dinner-hour-- +While _he_--alas!--_he had no home!_--At least +These very words seemed rising mockingly, +Until his every thought smacked raw and sour +And green and bitter as the apples he +In vain essayed to stay his hunger with. +Nor did he join the glad shouts when the boys +Returned rejuvenated for the long +Wet revel of the feverish afternoon.-- +Yet, bravely, as his comrades splashed and swam +And spluttered, in their weltering merriment, +He tried to laugh, too,--but his voice was hoarse +And sounded to him like some other boy's. +And then he felt a sudden, poking sort +Of sickness at the heart, as though some cold +And scaly pain were blindly nosing it +Down in the dreggy darkness of his breast. +The tensioned pucker of his purple lips +Grew ever chillier and yet more tense-- +The central hurt of it slow spreading till +It did possess the little face entire. +And then there grew to be a knuckled knot-- +An aching kind of core within his throat-- +An ache, all dry and swallowless, which seemed +To ache on just as bad when he'd pretend +He didn't notice it as when he did. +It was a kind of a conceited pain-- +An overbearing, self-assertive and +Barbaric sort of pain that clean outhurt +A boy's capacity for suffering-- +So, many times, the little martyr needs +Must turn himself all suddenly and dive +From sight of his hilarious playmates and +Surreptitiously weep under water. + + Thus +He wrestled with his awful agony +Till almost dark; and then, at last--then, with +The very latest lingering group of his +Companions, he moved turgidly toward home-- +Nay, rather _oozed_ that way, so slow he went,-- +With lothful, hesitating, loitering, +Reluctant, late-election-returns air, +Heightened somewhat by the conscience-made resolve +Of chopping a double-armful of wood +As he went in by rear way of the kitchen. +And this resolve he executed;--yet +The hired girl made no comment whatsoever, +But went on washing up the supper-things, +Crooning the unutterably sad song, "_Then think, +Oh, think how lonely this heart must ever be!_" +Still, with affected carelessness, the boy +Ranged through the pantry; but the cupboard-door +Was locked. He sighed then like a wet fore-stick +And went out on the porch.--At least the pump, +He prophesied, would meet him kindly and +Shake hands with him and welcome his return! +And long he held the old tin dipper up-- +And oh, how fresh and pure and sweet the draught! +Over the upturned brim, with grateful eyes +He saw the back-yard, in the gathering night, +Vague, dim and lonesome, but it all looked good: +The lightning-bugs, against the grape-vines, blinked +A sort of sallow gladness over his +Home-coming, with this softening of the heart. +He did not leave the dipper carelessly +In the milk-trough.--No: he hung it back upon +Its old nail thoughtfully--even tenderly. +All slowly then he turned and sauntered toward +The rain-barrel at the corner of the house, +And, pausing, peered into it at the few +Faint stars reflected there. Then--moved by some +Strange impulse new to him--he washed his feet. +He then went in the house--straight on into +The very room where sat his parents by +The evening lamp.--The father all intent +Reading his paper, and the mother quite +As intent with her sewing. Neither looked +Up at his entrance--even reproachfully,-- +And neither spoke. + + The wistful runaway +Drew a long, quavering breath, and then sat down +Upon the extreme edge of a chair. And all +Was very still there for a long, long while.-- +Yet everything, someway, seemed _restful_-like +And _homey_ and old-fashioned, good and kind, +And sort of _kin_ to him!--Only too _still!_ +If somebody would say something--just _speak_-- +Or even rise up suddenly and come +And lift him by the ear sheer off his chair-- +Or box his jaws--Lord bless 'em!--_any_thing!-- +Was he not there to thankfully accept +Any reception from parental source +Save this incomprehensible _voicelessness_. +O but the silence held its very breath! +If but the ticking clock would only _strike_ +And for an instant drown the whispering, +Lisping, sifting sound the katydids +Made outside in the grassy nowhere. + + Far +Down some back-street he heard the faint halloo +Of boys at their night-game of "Town-fox," +But now with no desire at all to be +Participating in their sport--No; no;-- +Never again in this world would he want +To join them there!--he only wanted just +To stay in home of nights--Always--always-- +Forever and a day! + + He moved; and coughed-- +Coughed hoarsely, too, through his rolled tongue; and yet +No vaguest of parental notice or +Solicitude in answer--no response-- +No word--no look. O it was deathly still!-- +So still it was that really he could not +Remember any prior silence that +At all approached it in profundity +And depth and density of utter hush. +He felt that he himself must break it: So, +Summoning every subtle artifice +Of seeming nonchalance and native ease +And naturalness of utterance to his aid, +And gazing raptly at the house-cat where +She lay curled in her wonted corner of +The hearth-rug, dozing, he spoke airily +And said: "I see you've got the same old cat!" + + + + +BEWILDERING EMOTIONS + +The merriment that followed was subdued-- +As though the story-teller's attitude +Were dual, in a sense, appealing quite +As much to sorrow as to mere delight, +According, haply, to the listener's bent +Either of sad or merry temperament.-- +"And of your two appeals I much prefer +The pathos," said "The Noted Traveler,"-- +"For should I live to twice my present years, +I know I could not quite forget the tears +That child-eyes bleed, the little palms nailed wide, +And quivering soul and body crucified.... +But, bless 'em! there are no such children here +To-night, thank God!--Come here to me, my dear!" +He said to little Alex, in a tone +So winning that the sound of it alone +Had drawn a child more lothful to his knee:-- +"And, now-sir, _I'll_ agree if _you'll_ agree,-- +_You_ tell us all a story, and then _I_ +Will tell one." + + "_But I can't._" + + "Well, can't you _try?_" +"Yes, Mister: he _kin_ tell _one_. Alex, tell +The one, you know, 'at you made up so well, +About the _Bear_. He allus tells that one," +Said Bud,--"He gits it mixed some 'bout the _gun_ +An' _ax_ the Little Boy had, an' _apples_, too."-- +Then Uncle Mart said--"There, now! that'll do!-- +Let _Alex_ tell his story his own way!" +And Alex, prompted thus, without delay +Began. + + + + +THE BEAR-STORY + +THAT ALEX "IST MAKED UP HIS-OWN-SE'F" + +W'y, wunst they wuz a Little Boy went out +In the woods to shoot a Bear. So, he went out +'Way in the grea'-big woods--he did.--An' he +Wuz goin'along--an'goin'along, you know, +An' purty soon he heerd somepin' go "_Wooh!_"-- +Ist thataway--"_Woo-ooh!_" An' he wuz _skeered_, +He wuz. An' so he runned an' clumbed a tree-- +A grea'-big tree, he did,--a sicka-_more_ tree. +An' nen he heerd it agin: an' he looked round, +An' _'t'uz a Bear!--a grea'-big, shore-nuff Bear!_-- +No: 't'uz _two_ Bears, it wuz--two grea'-big Bears-- +_One_ of 'em wuz--ist _one's a grea'-big_ Bear.-- +But they ist _boff_ went "_Wooh!_ "--An' here _they_ come +To climb the tree an' git the Little Boy +An'eat him up! + + An' nen the Little Boy +He 'uz skeered worse'n ever! An' here come +The grea'-big Bear a-climbin' th' tree to git +The Little Boy an' eat him up--Oh, _no!_-- +It 'uzn't the _Big_ Bear 'at clumb the tree-- +It 'uz the _Little_ Bear. So here _he_ come +Climbin' the tree--an' climbin' the tree! Nen when +He git wite _clos't_ to the Little Boy, w'y nen +The Little Boy he ist pulled up his gun +An' _shot_ the Bear, he did, an' killed him dead! +An' nen the Bear he falled clean on down out +The tree--away clean to the ground, he did +_Spling-splung!_ he falled _plum_ down, an' killed him, too! +An' lit wite side o' where the' _Big_ Bear's at. + +An' nen the Big Bear's awful mad, you bet!-- +'Cause--'cause the Little Boy he shot his gun +An' killed the _Little_ Bear.--'Cause the _Big_ Bear +He--he 'uz the Little Bear's Papa.--An' so here +_He_ come to climb the big old tree an' git +The Little Boy an' eat him up! An' when +The Little Boy he saw the _grea'-big Bear_ +A-comin', he 'uz badder skeered, he wuz, +Than _any_ time! An' so he think he'll climb +Up _higher_--'way up higher in the tree +Than the old _Bear_ kin climb, you know.--But he-- +He _can't_ climb higher 'an old _Bears_ kin climb,-- +'Cause Bears kin climb up higher in the trees +Than any little Boys In all the Wo-r-r-ld! + +An' so here come the grea'-big Bear, he did,-- +A-climbin' up--an' up the tree, to git +The Little Boy an' eat him up! An' so +The Little Boy he clumbed on higher, an' higher. +An' higher up the tree--an' higher--an' higher-- +An' higher'n iss-here _house_ is!--An' here come +Th' old Bear--clos'ter to him all the time!-- +An' nen--first thing you know,--when th' old Big Bear +Wuz wite clos't to him--nen the Little Boy +Ist jabbed his gun wite in the old Bear's mouf +An' shot an' killed him dead!--No; I _fergot_,-- +He didn't shoot the grea'-big Bear at all-- +'Cause _they 'uz no load in the gun_, you know-- +'Cause when he shot the _Little_ Bear, w'y, nen +No load 'uz anymore nen _in_ the gun! + +But th' Little Boy clumbed _higher_ up, he did-- +He clumbed _lots_ higher--an' on up _higher_--an' higher +An' _higher_--tel he ist _can't_ climb no higher, +'Cause nen the limbs 'uz all so little, 'way +Up in the teeny-weeny tip-top of +The tree, they'd break down wiv him ef he don't +Be keerful! So he stop an' think: An' nen +He look around--An' here come th' old Bear! +An' so the Little Boy make up his mind +He's got to ist git out o' there _some_ way!-- +'Cause here come the old Bear!--so clos't, his bref's +Purt 'nigh so's he kin feel how hot it is +Aginst his bare feet--ist like old "Ring's" bref +When he's ben out a-huntin' an's all tired. +So when th' old Bear's so clos't--the Little Boy +Ist gives a grea'-big jump fer '_nother_ tree-- +No!--no he don't do that!--I tell you what +The Little Boy does:--W'y, nen--w'y, he--Oh, _yes_-- +The Little Boy _he finds a hole up there +'At's in the tree_--an' climbs in there an' _hides_-- +An' _nen_ the old Bear can't find the Little Boy +Ut-tall!--But, purty soon th' old Bear finds +The Little Boy's _gun_ 'at's up there--'cause the _gun_ +It's too _tall_ to tooked wiv him in the hole. +So, when the old Bear find' the _gun_, he knows +The Little Boy ist _hid_ 'round _somers_ there,-- +An' th' old Bear 'gins to snuff an' sniff around, +An' sniff an' snuff around--so's he kin find +Out where the Little Boy's hid at.--An' nen--nen-- +Oh, _yes!_--W'y, purty soon the old Bear climbs +'Way out on a big limb--a grea'-long limb,-- +An' nen the Little Boy climbs out the hole +An' takes his ax an' chops the limb off!... Nen +The old Bear falls _k-splunge!_ clean to the ground +An' bust an' kill hisse'f plum dead, he did! + +An' nen the Little Boy he git his gun +An' 'menced a-climbin' down the tree agin-- +No!--no, he _didn't_ git his _gun_--'cause when +The _Bear_ falled, nen the _gun_ falled, too--An' broked +It all to pieces, too!--An' _nicest_ gun!-- +His Pa ist buyed it!--An' the Little Boy +Ist cried, he did; an' went on climbin' down +The tree--an' climbin' down--an' climbin' down!-- +_An'-sir!_ when he 'uz purt'-nigh down,--w'y, nen +_The old Bear he jumped up agin!_--an he +Ain't dead ut-tall--_ist_ 'tendin' thataway, +So he kin git the Little Boy an' eat +Him up! But the Little Boy he 'uz too smart +To climb clean _down_ the tree.--An' the old Bear +He can't climb _up_ the tree no more--'cause when +He fell, he broke one of his--He broke _all_ +His legs!--an' nen he _couldn't_ climb! But he +Ist won't go 'way an' let the Little Boy +Come down out of the tree. An' the old Bear +Ist growls 'round there, he does--ist growls an' goes +"_Wooh! woo-ooh!_" all the time! An' Little Boy +He haf to stay up in the tree--all night-- +An' 'thout no _supper_ neever!--Only they +Wuz _apples_ on the tree!--An' Little Boy +Et apples--ist all night--an' cried--an' cried! +Nen when 'tuz morning th' old Bear went "_Wooh!_" +Agin, an' try to climb up in the tree +An' git the Little Boy.--But he _can't_ +Climb t'save his _soul_, he can't!--An' _oh!_ he's _mad!_-- +He ist tear up the ground! an' go "_Woo-ooh!_" +An'--_Oh,yes!_--purty soon, when morning's come +All _light_--so's you kin _see_, you know,--w'y, nen +The old Bear finds the Little Boy's _gun_, you know, +'At's on the ground.--(An' it ain't broke ut-tall-- +I ist _said_ that!) An' so the old Bear think +He'll take the gun an' _shoot_ the Little Boy:-- +But _Bears they_ don't know much 'bout shootin' guns: +So when he go to shoot the Little Boy, +The old Bear got the _other_ end the gun +Agin his shoulder, 'stid o' _th'other_ end-- +So when he try to shoot the Little Boy, +It shot _the Bear_, it did--an' killed him dead! +An' nen the Little Boy dumb down the tree +An' chopped his old wooly head off:--Yes, an' killed +The _other_ Bear agin, he did--an' killed +All _boff_ the bears, he did--an' tuk 'em home +An' _cooked_ 'em, too, an' _et_ 'em! + + --An' that's + + + + +THE PATHOS OF APPLAUSE + +The greeting of the company throughout +Was like a jubilee,--the children's shout +And fusillading hand-claps, with great guns +And detonations of the older ones, +Raged to such tumult of tempestuous joy, +It even more alarmed than pleased the boy; +Till, with a sudden twitching lip, he slid +Down to the floor and dodged across and hid +His face against his mother as she raised +Him to the shelter of her heart, and praised +His story in low whisperings, and smoothed +The "amber-colored hair," and kissed, and soothed +And lulled him back to sweet tranquillity-- +"And 'ats a sign 'at you're the Ma fer me!" +He lisped, with gurgling ecstasy, and drew +Her closer, with shut eyes; and feeling, too, +If he could only _purr_ now like a cat, +He would undoubtedly be doing that! + +"And now"--the serious host said, lifting there +A hand entreating silence;--"now, aware +Of the good promise of our Traveler guest +To add some story with and for the rest, +I think I favor you, and him as well, +Asking a story I have heard him tell, +And know its truth,in each minute detail:" +Then leaning on his guest's chair, with a hale +Hand-pat by way of full indorsement, he +Said, "Yes--the Free-Slave story--certainly." + +The old man, with his waddy notebook out, +And glittering spectacles, glanced round about +The expectant circle, and still firmer drew +His hat on, with a nervous cough or two: +And, save at times the big hard words, and tone +Of gathering passion--all the speaker's own,-- +The tale that set each childish heart astir +Was thus told by "The Noted Traveler." + + + + +TOLD BY "THE NOTED TRAVELER" + +Coming, clean from the Maryland-end +Of this great National Road of ours, +Through your vast West; with the time to spend, +Stopping for days in the main towns, where +Every citizen seemed a friend, +And friends grew thick as the wayside flowers,-- +I found no thing that I might narrate +More singularly strange or queer +Than a thing I found in your sister-state +Ohio,--at a river-town--down here +In my notebook: _Zanesville--situate +On the stream Muskingum--broad and clear, +And navigable, through half the year, +North, to Coshocton; south, as far +As Marietta._--But these facts are +Not of the _story_, but the _scene_ +Of the simple little tale I mean +To tell _directly_--from this, straight through +To the _end_ that is best worth listening to: + +Eastward of Zanesville, two or three +Miles from the town, as our stage drove in, +I on the driver's seat, and he +Pointing out this and that to me,-- +On beyond us--among the rest-- +A grovey slope, and a fluttering throng +Of little children, which he "guessed" +Was a picnic, as we caught their thin +High laughter, as we drove along, +Clearer and clearer. Then suddenly +He turned and asked, with a curious grin, +What were my views on _Slavery? "Why?"_ +I asked, in return, with a wary eye. +"Because," he answered, pointing his whip +At a little, whitewashed house and shed +On the edge of the road by the grove ahead,-- +"Because there are two slaves _there_," he said-- +"Two Black slaves that I've passed each trip +For eighteen years.--Though they've been set free, +They have been slaves ever since!" said he. +And, as our horses slowly drew +Nearer the little house in view, +All briefly I heard the history +Of this little old Negro woman and +Her husband, house and scrap of land; +How they were slaves and had been made free +By their dying master, years ago +In old Virginia; and then had come +North here into a _free_ state--so, +Safe forever, to found a home-- +For themselves alone?--for they left South there +Five strong sons, who had, alas! +All been sold ere it came to pass +This first old master with his last breath +Had freed the _parents_.--(He went to death +Agonized and in dire despair +That the poor slave _children_ might not share +Their parents' freedom. And wildly then +He moaned for pardon and died. Amen!) + +Thus, with their freedom, and little sum +Of money left them, these two had come +North, full twenty long years ago; +And, settling there, they had hopefully +Gone to work, in their simple way, +Hauling--gardening--raising sweet +Corn, and popcorn.--Bird and bee +In the garden-blooms and the apple-tree +Singing with them throughout the slow +Summer's day, with its dust and heat-- +The crops that thirst and the rains that fail; +Or in Autumn chill, when the clouds hung low, +And hand-made hominy might find sale +In the near town-market; or baking pies +And cakes, to range in alluring show +At the little window, where the eyes +Of the Movers' children, driving past, +Grew fixed, till the big white wagons drew +Into a halt that would sometimes last +Even the space of an hour or two-- +As the dusty, thirsty travelers made +Their noonings there in the beeches' shade +By the old black Aunty's spring-house, where, +Along with its cooling draughts, were found +Jugs of her famous sweet spruce-beer, +Served with her gingerbread-horses there, +While Aunty's snow-white cap bobbed 'round +Till the children's rapture knew no bound, +As she sang and danced for them, quavering clear +And high the chant of her old slave-days-- + + "Oh, Lo'd, Jinny! my toes is so', + Dancin' on yo' sandy flo'!" + +Even so had they wrought all ways +To earn the pennies, and hoard them, too,-- +And with what ultimate end in view?-- +They were saving up money enough to be +Able, in time, to buy their own +Five children back. + + Ah! the toil gone through! +And the long delays and the heartaches, too, +And self-denials that they had known! +But the pride and glory that was theirs +When they first hitched up their shackly cart +For the long, long journey South.--The start +In the first drear light of the chilly dawn, +With no friends gathered in grieving throng,-- +With no farewells and favoring prayers; +But, as they creaked and jolted on, +Their chiming voices broke in song-- + + "'Hail, all hail! don't you see the stars a-fallin'? + Hail, all hail! I'm on my way. + Gideon[1] am + A healin' ba'm-- + I belong to the blood-washed army. + Gideon am + A healin' ba'm-- + On my way!'" + +And their _return!_--with their oldest boy +Along with them! Why, their happiness +Spread abroad till it grew a joy +_Universal_--It even reached +And thrilled the town till the _Church_ was stirred +Into suspecting that wrong was wrong!-- +And it stayed awake as the preacher preached +A _Real_ "Love"-text that he had not long +To ransack for in the Holy Word. + +And the son, restored, and welcomed so, +Found service readily in the town; +And, with the parents, sure and slow, +_He_ went "saltin' de cole cash down." + +So with the _next_ boy--and each one +In turn, till _four_ of the five at last +Had been bought back; and, in each case, +With steady work and good homes not +Far from the parents, _they_ chipped in +To the family fund, with an equal grace. +Thus they managed and planned and wrought, +And the old folks throve--Till the night before +They were to start for the lone last son +In the rainy dawn--their money fast +Hid away in the house,--two mean, +Murderous robbers burst the door. +...Then, in the dark, was a scuffle--a fall-- +An old man's gasping cry--and then +A woman's fife-like shriek. + + ...Three men +Splashing by on horseback heard +The summons: And in an instant all +Sprung to their duty, with scarce a word. +And they were _in time_--not only to save +The lives of the old folks, but to bag +Both the robbers, and buck-and-gag +And land them safe in the county-jail-- +Or, as Aunty said, with a blended awe +And subtlety,--"Safe in de calaboose whah +De dawgs caint bite 'em!" + + --So prevail +The faithful!--So had the Lord upheld +His servants of both deed and prayer,-- +HIS the glory unparalleled-- +_Theirs_ the reward,--their every son +Free, at last, as the parents were! +And, as the driver ended there +In front of the little house, I said, +All fervently, "Well done! well done!" +At which he smiled, and turned his head +And pulled on the leaders' lines and--"See!" +He said,--"'you can read old Aunty's sign?" +And, peering down through these specs of mine +On a little, square board-sign, I read: + + "Stop, traveler, if you think it fit, + And quench your thirst for a-fip-and-a-bit. + The rocky spring is very clear, + And soon converted into beer." + +And, though I read aloud, I could +Scarce hear myself for laugh and shout +Of children--a glad multitude +Of little people, swarming out +Of the picnic-grounds I spoke about.-- +And in their rapturous midst, I see +Again--through mists of memory-- +A black old Negress laughing up +At the driver, with her broad lips rolled +Back from her teeth, chalk-white, and gums +Redder than reddest red-ripe plums. +He took from her hand the lifted cup +Of clear spring-water, pure and cold, +And passed it to me: And I raised my hat +And drank to her with a reverence that +My conscience knew was justly due +The old black face, and the old eyes, too-- +The old black head, with its mossy mat +Of hair, set under its cap and frills +White as the snows on Alpine hills; +Drank to the old _black_ smile, but yet +Bright as the sun on the violet,-- +Drank to the gnarled and knuckled old +Black hands whose palms had ached and bled +And pitilessly been worn pale +And white almost as the palms that hold +Slavery's lash while the victim's wail +Fails as a crippled prayer might fail.-- +Aye, with a reverence infinite, +I drank to the old black face and head-- +The old black breast with its life of light-- +The old black hide with its heart of gold. + + + + +HEAT-LIGHTNING + +There was a curious quiet for a space +Directly following: and in the face +Of one rapt listener pulsed the flush and glow +Of the heat-lightning that pent passions throw +Long ere the crash of speech.--He broke the spell-- +The host:--The Traveler's story, told so well, +He said, had wakened there within his breast +A yearning, as it were, to know _the rest_-- +That all unwritten sequence that the Lord +Of Righteousness must write with flame and sword, +Some awful session of His patient thought-- +Just then it was, his good old mother caught +His blazing eye--so that its fire became +But as an ember--though it burned the same. +It seemed to her, she said, that she had heard +It was the _Heavenly_ Parent never erred, +And not the _earthly_ one that had such grace: +"Therefore, my son," she said, with lifted face +And eyes, "let no one dare anticipate +The Lord's intent. While _He_ waits, _we_ will wait" +And with a gust of reverence genuine +Then Uncle Mart was aptly ringing in-- + + "'_If the darkened heavens lower, + Wrap thy cloak around thy form; + Though the tempest rise in power, + God is mightier than the storm!_'" + +Which utterance reached the restive children all +As something humorous. And then a call +For _him_ to tell a story, or to "say +A funny piece." His face fell right away: +He knew no story worthy. Then he must +_Declaim_ for them: In that, he could not trust +His memory. And then a happy thought +Struck some one, who reached in his vest and brought +Some scrappy clippings into light and said +There was a poem of Uncle Mart's he read +Last April in "_The Sentinel_." He had +It there in print, and knew all would be glad +To hear it rendered by the author. + + And, +All reasons for declining at command +Exhausted, the now helpless poet rose +And said: "I am discovered, I suppose. +Though I have taken all precautions not +To sign my name to any verses wrought +By my transcendent genius, yet, you see, +Fame wrests my secret from me bodily; +So I must needs confess I did this deed +Of poetry red-handed, nor can plead +One whit of unintention in my crime-- +My guilt of rhythm and my glut of rhyme.-- + + "Maenides rehearsed a tale of arms, + And Naso told of curious metat_mur_phoses; + Unnumbered pens have pictured woman's charms, + While crazy _I_'ve made poetry _on purposes!_" + +In other words, I stand convicted--need +I say--by my own doing, as I read. + + + + +UNCLE MART'S POEM + +THE OLD SNOW-MAN + +Ho! the old Snow-Man + That Noey Bixler made! +He looked as fierce and sassy + As a soldier on parade!-- +'Cause Noey, when he made him, + While we all wuz gone, you see, +He made him, jist a-purpose, + Jist as fierce as he could be!-- + But when we all got _ust_ to him, + Nobody wuz afraid + Of the old Snow-Man + That Noey Bixler made! + +'Cause Noey told us 'bout him + And what he made him fer:-- +He'd come to feed, that morning + He found we wuzn't here; +And so the notion struck him, + When we all come taggin' home +'Tud _s'prise_ us ef a' old Snow-Man + 'Ud meet us when we come! +So, when he'd fed the stock, and milked, + And ben back home, and chopped +His wood, and et his breakfast, he + Jist grabbed his mitts and hopped +Right in on that-air old Snow-Man + That he laid out he'd make +Er bust a trace _a-tryin_'--jist + Fer old-acquaintance sake!-- + But work like that wuz lots more fun. + He said, than when he played! + Ho! the old Snow-Man + That Noey Bixler made! + +He started with a big snow-ball, + And rolled it all around; +And as he rolled, more snow 'ud stick + And pull up off the ground.-- +He rolled and rolled all round the yard-- + 'Cause we could see the _track_, +All wher' the snow come off, you know, + And left it wet and black. +He got the Snow-Man's _legs-part_ rolled-- + In front the kitchen-door,-- +And then he hat to turn in then + And roll and roll some more!-- +He rolled the yard all round agin, + And round the house, at that-- +Clean round the house and back to wher' + The blame legs-half wuz at! + He said he missed his dinner, too-- + Jist clean fergot and stayed + There workin'. Ho! the old Snow-Man + That Noey Bixler made! + +And Noey said he hat to _hump_ + To git the _top-half_ on +The _legs-half!_--When he _did_, he said, + His wind wuz purt'-nigh gone.-- +He said, I jucks! he jist drapped down + There on the old porch-floor +And panted like a dog!--And then + He up! and rolled some more!-- +The _last_ batch--that wuz fer his head,-- + And--time he'd got it right +And clumb and fixed it on, he said-- + He hat to quit fer night!-- +And _then_, he said, he'd kep' right on + Ef they'd ben any _moon_ +To work by! So he crawled in bed-- + And _could_ a-slep' tel _noon_, + He wuz so plum wore out! he said,-- + But it wuz washin'-day, + And hat to cut a cord o' wood + 'Fore he could git away! + +But, last, he got to work agin,-- + With spade, and gouge, and hoe, +And trowel, too--(All tools 'ud do + What _Noey_ said, you know!) +He cut his eyebrows out like cliffs-- + And his cheekbones and chin +Stuck _furder_ out--and his old _nose_ + Stuck out as fur-agin! +He made his eyes o' walnuts, + And his whiskers out o' this +Here buggy-cushion stuffin'--_moss_, + The teacher says it is. +And then he made a' old wood'-gun, + Set keerless-like, you know, +Acrost one shoulder--kindo' like + Big Foot, er Adam Poe-- + Er, mayby, Simon Girty, + The dinged old Renegade! + _Wooh!_ the old Snow-Man + That Noey Bixler made! + +And there he stood, all fierce and grim, + A stern, heroic form: +What was the winter blast to him, + And what the driving storm?-- +What wonder that the children pressed + Their faces at the pane +And scratched away the frost, in pride + To look on him again?-- + What wonder that, with yearning bold, + Their all of love and care + Went warmest through the keenest cold + To that Snow-Man out there! + +But the old Snow-Man-- + What a dubious delight +He grew at last when Spring came on + And days waxed warm and bright.-- +Alone he stood--all kith and kin + Of snow and ice were gone;-- +Alone, with constant teardrops in + His eyes and glittering on +His thin, pathetic beard of black-- + Grief in a hopeless cause!-- +Hope--hope is for the man that _dies_-- + What for the man that _thaws!_ + O Hero of a hero's make!-- + Let _marble_ melt and fade, + But never _you_--you old Snow-Man + That Noey Bixler made! + + + + +"LITTLE JACK JANITOR" + +And there, in that ripe Summer-night, once more +A wintry coolness through the open door +And window seemed to touch each glowing face +Refreshingly; and, for a fleeting space, +The quickened fancy, through the fragrant air, +Saw snowflakes whirling where the roseleaves were, +And sounds of veriest jingling bells again +Were heard in tinkling spoons and glasses then. + +Thus Uncle Mart's old poem sounded young +And crisp and fresh and clear as when first sung, +Away back in the wakening of Spring +When his rhyme and the robin, chorusing, +Rumored, in duo-fanfare, of the soon +Invading johnny-jump-ups, with platoon +On platoon of sweet-williams, marshaled fine +To bloomed blarings of the trumpet-vine. + +The poet turned to whisperingly confer +A moment with "The Noted Traveler." +Then left the room, tripped up the stairs, and then +An instant later reappeared again, +Bearing a little, lacquered box, or chest, +Which, as all marked with curious interest, +He gave to the old Traveler, who in +One hand upheld it, pulling back his thin +Black lustre coat-sleeves, saying he had sent +Up for his "Magic Box," and that he meant +To test it there--especially to show +_The Children_. "It is _empty now_, you know."-- +He humped it with his knuckles, so they heard +The hollow sound--"But lest it be inferred +It is not _really_ empty, I will ask +_Little Jack Janitor_, whose pleasant task +It is to keep it ship-shape." + + Then he tried +And rapped the little drawer in the side, +And called out sharply "Are you in there, Jack?" +And then a little, squeaky voice came back,-- +"_Of course I'm in here--ain't you got the key +Turned on me!_" + + Then the Traveler leisurely +Felt through his pockets, and at last took out +The smallest key they ever heard about!-- +It,wasn't any longer than a pin: +And this at last he managed to fit in +The little keyhole, turned it, and then cried, +"Is everything swept out clean there inside?" +"_Open the drawer and see!--Don't talk to much; +Or else_," the little voice squeaked, "_talk in Dutch-- +You age me, asking questions!_" + + Then the man +Looked hurt, so that the little folks began +To feel so sorry for him, he put down +His face against the box and had to frown.-- +"Come, sir!" he called,--"no impudence to _me!_-- +You've swept out clean?" + + "_Open the drawer and see!_" +And so he drew the drawer out: Nothing there, +But just the empty drawer, stark and bare. +He shoved it back again, with a shark click.-- + +"_Ouch!_" yelled the little voice--"_un-snap it--quick!-- +You've got my nose pinched in the crack!_" + + And then +The frightened man drew out the drawer again, +The little voice exclaiming, "_Jeemi-nee!-- +Say what you want, but please don't murder me!_" + +"Well, then," the man said, as he closed the drawer +With care, "I want some cotton-batting for +My supper! Have you got it?" + + And inside, +All muffled like, the little voice replied, +"_Open the drawer and see!_" + + And, sure enough, +He drew it out, filled with the cotton stuff. +He then asked for a candle to be brought +And held for him: and tuft by tuft he caught +And lit the cotton, and, while blazing, took +It in his mouth and ate it, with a look +Of purest satisfaction. + + "Now," said he, +"I've eaten the drawer empty, let me see +What this is in my mouth:" And with both hands +He began drawing from his lips long strands +Of narrow silken ribbons, every hue +And tint;--and crisp they were and bright and new +As if just purchased at some Fancy-Store. +"And now, Bub, bring your cap," he said, "before +Something might happen!" And he stuffed the cap +Full of the ribbons. "_There_, my little chap, +Hold _tight_ to them," he said, "and take them to +The ladies there, for they know what to do +With all such rainbow finery!" + + He smiled +Half sadly, as it seemed, to see the child +Open his cap first to his mother..... There +Was not a ribbon in it anywhere! +"_Jack Janitor!_" the man said sternly through +The Magic Box--"Jack Janitor, did _you_ +Conceal those ribbons anywhere?" + + "_Well, yes,_" +The little voice piped--"_but you'd never guess +The place I hid 'em if you'd guess a year!_" + +"Well, won't you _tell_ me?" + + "_Not until you clear +Your mean old conscience_" said the voice, "_and make +Me first do something for the Children's sake._" + +"Well, then, fill up the drawer," the Traveler said, +"With whitest white on earth and reddest red!-- +Your terms accepted--Are you satisfied?" + +"_Open the drawer and see!_" the voice replied. + +"_Why, bless my soul!_"--the man said, as he drew +The contents of the drawer into view-- +"It's level-full of _candy!_--Pass it 'round-- +Jack Janitor shan't steal _that_, I'll be bound!"-- +He raised and crunched a stick of it and smacked +His lips.--"Yes, that _is_ candy, for a fact!-- +And it's all _yours!_" + + And how the children there +Lit into it!--O never anywhere +Was such a feast of sweetness! + + "And now, then," +The man said, as the empty drawer again +Slid to its place, he bending over it,-- +"Now, then, Jack Janitor, before we quit +Our entertainment for the evening, tell +Us where you hid the ribbons--can't you?" + + "_Well,_" +The squeaky little voice drawled sleepily-- +"_Under your old hat, maybe.--Look and see!_" + +All carefully the man took off his hat: +But there was not a ribbon under that.-- +He shook his heavy hair, and all in vain +The old white hat--then put it on again: +"Now, tell me, _honest_, Jack, where _did_ you hide +The ribbons?" + + "_Under your hat_" the voice replied.-- +"_Mind! I said 'under' and not 'in' it.--Won't +You ever take the hint on earth?--or don't +You want to show folks where the ribbons at?-- +Law! but I'm sleepy!--Under--unner your hat!_" + +Again the old man carefully took off +The empty hat, with an embarrassed cough, +Saying, all gravely to the children: "You +Must promise not to _laugh_--you'll all _want_ to-- +When you see where Jack Janitor has dared +To hide those ribbons--when he might have spared +My feelings.--But no matter!--Know the worst-- +Here are the ribbons, as I feared at first."-- +And, quick as snap of thumb and finger, there +The old man's head had not a sign of hair, +And in his lap a wig of iron-gray +Lay, stuffed with all that glittering array +Of ribbons ... "Take 'em to the ladies--Yes. +Good-night to everybody, and God bless +The Children." + + In a whisper no one missed +The Hired Man yawned: "He's a vantrilloquist" + + * * * * * + +So gloried all the night Each trundle-bed +And pallet was enchanted--each child-head +Was packed with happy dreams. And long before +The dawn's first far-off rooster crowed, the snore +Of Uncle Mart was stilled, as round him pressed +The bare arms of the wakeful little guest +That he had carried home with him.... + + "I think," +An awed voice said--"(No: I don't want a _dwink_.-- +Lay still.)--I think 'The Noted Traveler' he +'S the inscrutibul-est man I ever see!" + + +[Footnote 1: _Gilead_--evidently.--[Editor.] + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Child-World, by James Whitcomb Riley + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHILD-WORLD *** + +This file should be named 7cwld10.txt or 7cwld10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7cwld11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7cwld10a.txt + +Produced by David Starner, Maria Cecilia Lim +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: A Child-World + +Author: James Whitcomb Riley + +Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9651] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 13, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHILD-WORLD *** + + + + +Produced by David Starner, Maria Cecilia Lim +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +A CHILD-WORLD + + +James Whitcomb Riley + + + + +A CHILD-WORLD + +_The Child-World--long and long since lost to view-- + A Fairy Paradise!-- + How always fair it was and fresh and new-- + How every affluent hour heaped heart and eyes + With treasures of surprise! + + Enchantments tangible: The under-brink + Of dawns that launched the sight + Up seas of gold: The dewdrop on the pink, + With all the green earth in it and blue height + Of heavens infinite: + + The liquid, dripping songs of orchard-birds-- + The wee bass of the bees,-- + With lucent deeps of silence afterwards; + The gay, clandestine whisperings of the breeze + And glad leaves of the trees. + + * * * * * + + O Child-World: After this world--just as when + I found you first sufficed + My soulmost need--if I found you again, + With all my childish dream so realised, + I should not be surprised._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + +PROEM + +THE CHILD-WORLD + +THE OLD-HOME FOLKS + +ALMON KEEPER + +NOEY BIXLER + +"A NOTED TRAVELER" + +A PROSPECTIVE VISIT + +AT NOEY'S HOUSE + +"THAT LITTLE DOG" + +THE LOEHRS AND THE HAMMONDS + +THE HIRED MAN AND FLORETTY + +THE EVENING COMPANY + +MAYMIE'S STORY OF RED RIDING HOOD + +LIMITATIONS OF GENIUS + +MR. HAMMOND'S PARABLE--THE DREAMER + +FLORETTY'S MUSICAL CONTRIBUTION + +BUD'S FAIRY-TALE + +A DELICIOUS INTERRUPTION + +NOEY'S NIGHT-PIECE + +COUSIN RUFUS' STORY + +BEWILDERING EMOTIONS + +ALEX TELLS A BEAR-STORY + +THE PATHOS OF APPLAUSE + +TOLD BY "THE NOTED TRAVELER" + +HEAT-LIGHTNING + +UNCLE MART'S POEM + +"LITTLE JACK JANITOR" + +FINALE + + + + +THE CHILD-WORLD + + +A Child-World, yet a wondrous world no less, +To those who knew its boundless happiness. +A simple old frame house--eight rooms in all-- +Set just one side the center of a small +But very hopeful Indiana town,-- +The upper-story looking squarely down +Upon the main street, and the main highway +From East to West,--historic in its day, +Known as The National Road--old-timers, all +Who linger yet, will happily recall +It as the scheme and handiwork, as well +As property, of "Uncle Sam," and tell +Of its importance, "long and long afore +Railroads wuz ever _dreamp_' of!"--Furthermore, +The reminiscent first Inhabitants +Will make that old road blossom with romance +Of snowy caravans, in long parade +Of covered vehicles, of every grade +From ox-cart of most primitive design, +To Conestoga wagons, with their fine +Deep-chested six-horse teams, in heavy gear, +High names and chiming bells--to childish ear +And eye entrancing as the glittering train +Of some sun-smitten pageant of old Spain. +And, in like spirit, haply they will tell +You of the roadside forests, and the yell +Of "wolfs" and "painters," in the long night-ride, +And "screechin' catamounts" on every side.-- +Of stagecoach-days, highwaymen, and strange crimes, +And yet unriddled mysteries of the times +Called "Good Old." "And why 'Good Old'?" once a rare +Old chronicler was asked, who brushed the hair +Out of his twinkling eyes and said,--"Well John, +They're 'good old times' because they're dead and gone!" + +The old home site was portioned into three +Distinctive lots. The front one--natively +Facing to southward, broad and gaudy-fine +With lilac, dahlia, rose, and flowering vine-- +The dwelling stood in; and behind that, and +Upon the alley north and south, left hand, +The old wood-house,--half, trimly stacked with wood, +And half, a work-shop, where a workbench stood +Steadfastly through all seasons.--Over it, +Along the wall, hung compass, brace-and-bit, +And square, and drawing-knife, and smoothing-plane-- +And little jack-plane, too--the children's vain +Possession by pretense--in fancy they +Manipulating it in endless play, +Turning out countless curls and loops of bright, +Fine satin shavings--Rapture infinite! +Shelved quilting-frames; the toolchest; the old box +Of refuse nails and screws; a rough gun-stock's +Outline in "curly maple"; and a pair +Of clamps and old krout-cutter hanging there. +Some "patterns," in thin wood, of shield and scroll, +Hung higher, with a neat "cane-fishing-pole" +And careful tackle--all securely out +Of reach of children, rummaging about. + +Beside the wood-house, with broad branches free +Yet close above the roof, an apple-tree +Known as "The Prince's Harvest"--Magic phrase! +That was _a boy's own tree_, in many ways!-- +Its girth and height meet both for the caress +Of his bare legs and his ambitiousness: +And then its apples, humoring his whim, +Seemed just to fairly _hurry_ ripe for him-- +Even in June, impetuous as he, +They dropped to meet him, halfway up the tree. +And O their bruised sweet faces where they fell!-- +And ho! the lips that feigned to "kiss them _well_"! + +"The Old Sweet-Apple-Tree," a stalwart, stood +In fairly sympathetic neighborhood +Of this wild princeling with his early gold +To toss about so lavishly nor hold +In bounteous hoard to overbrim at once +All Nature's lap when came the Autumn months. +Under the spacious shade of this the eyes +Of swinging children saw swift-changing skies +Of blue and green, with sunshine shot between, +And "when the old cat died" they saw but green. +And, then, there was a cherry-tree.--We all +And severally will yet recall +From our lost youth, in gentlest memory, +The blessed fact--There was a cherry-tree. + + There was a cherry-tree. Its bloomy snows + Cool even now the fevered sight that knows + No more its airy visions of pure joy-- + As when you were a boy. + + There was a cherry-tree. The Bluejay set + His blue against its white--O blue as jet + He seemed there then!--But _now_--Whoever knew + He was so pale a blue! + + There was a cherry-tree--Our child-eyes saw + The miracle:--Its pure white snows did thaw + Into a crimson fruitage, far too sweet + But for a boy to eat. + + There was a cherry-tree, give thanks and joy!-- + There was a bloom of snow--There was a boy-- + There was a Bluejay of the realest blue-- + And fruit for both of you. + +Then the old garden, with the apple-trees +Grouped 'round the margin, and "a stand of bees" +By the "white-winter-pearmain"; and a row +Of currant-bushes; and a quince or so. +The old grape-arbor in the center, by +The pathway to the stable, with the sty +Behind it, and _upon_ it, cootering flocks +Of pigeons, and the cutest "martin-box"!-- +Made like a sure-enough house--with roof, and doors +And windows in it, and veranda-floors +And balusters all 'round it--yes, and at +Each end a chimney--painted red at that +And penciled white, to look like little bricks; +And, to cap all the builder's cunning tricks, +Two tiny little lightning-rods were run +Straight up their sides, and twinkled in the sun. +Who built it? Nay, no answer but a smile.-- +It _may_ be you can guess who, afterwhile. +Home in his stall, "Old Sorrel" munched his hay +And oats and corn, and switched the flies away, +In a repose of patience good to see, +And earnest of the gentlest pedigree. +With half pathetic eye sometimes he gazed +Upon the gambols of a colt that grazed +Around the edges of the lot outside, +And kicked at nothing suddenly, and tried +To act grown-up and graceful and high-bred, +But dropped, _k'whop!_ and scraped the buggy-shed, +Leaving a tuft of woolly, foxy hair +Under the sharp-end of a gate-hinge there. +Then, all ignobly scrambling to his feet +And whinneying a whinney like a bleat, +He would pursue himself around the lot +And--do the whole thing over, like as not!... +Ah! what a life of constant fear and dread +And flop and squawk and flight the chickens led! +Above the fences, either side, were seen +The neighbor-houses, set in plots of green +Dooryards and greener gardens, tree and wall +Alike whitewashed, and order in it all: +The scythe hooked in the tree-fork; and the spade +And hoe and rake and shovel all, when laid +Aside, were in their places, ready for +The hand of either the possessor or +Of any neighbor, welcome to the loan +Of any tool he might not chance to own. + + + + +THE OLD-HOME FOLKS + +Such was the Child-World of the long-ago-- +The little world these children used to know:-- +Johnty, the oldest, and the best, perhaps, +Of the five happy little Hoosier chaps +Inhabiting this wee world all their own.-- +Johnty, the leader, with his native tone +Of grave command--a general on parade +Whose each punctilious order was obeyed +By his proud followers. + + But Johnty yet-- +After all serious duties--could forget +The gravity of life to the extent, +At times, of kindling much astonishment +About him: With a quick, observant eye, +And mind and memory, he could supply +The tamest incident with liveliest mirth; +And at the most unlooked-for times on earth +Was wont to break into some travesty +On those around him--feats of mimicry +Of this one's trick of gesture--that one's walk-- +Or this one's laugh--or that one's funny talk,-- +The way "the watermelon-man" would try +His humor on town-folks that wouldn't buy;-- +How he drove into town at morning--then +At dusk (alas!) how he drove out again. + +Though these divertisements of Johnty's were +Hailed with a hearty glee and relish, there +Appeared a sense, on his part, of regret-- +A spirit of remorse that would not let +Him rest for days thereafter.--Such times he, +As some boy said, "jist got too overly +Blame good fer common boys like us, you know, +To '_so_ciate with--less'n we 'ud go +And jine his church!" + + Next after Johnty came +His little tow-head brother, Bud by name.-- +And O how white his hair was--and how thick +His face with freckles,--and his ears, how quick +And curious and intrusive!--And how pale +The blue of his big eyes;--and how a tale +Of Giants, Trolls or Fairies, bulged them still +Bigger and bigger!--and when "Jack" would kill +The old "Four-headed Giant," Bud's big eyes +Were swollen truly into giant-size. +And Bud was apt in make-believes--would hear +His Grandma talk or read, with such an ear +And memory of both subject and big words, +That he would take the book up afterwards +And feign to "read aloud," with such success +As caused his truthful elders real distress. +But he _must_ have _big words_--they seemed to give +Extremer range to the superlative-- +That was his passion. "My Gran'ma," he said, +One evening, after listening as she read +Some heavy old historical review-- +With copious explanations thereunto +Drawn out by his inquiring turn of mind,-- +"My Gran'ma she's read _all_ books--ever' kind +They is, 'at tells all 'bout the land an' sea +An' Nations of the Earth!--An' she is the +Historicul-est woman ever wuz!" +(Forgive the verse's chuckling as it does +In its erratic current.--Oftentimes +The little willowy waterbrook of rhymes +Must falter in its music, listening to +The children laughing as they used to do.) + + Who shall sing a simple ditty all about the Willow, + Dainty-fine and delicate as any bending spray + That dandles high the happy bird that flutters there to trill a + Tremulously tender song of greeting to the May. + + Ah, my lovely Willow!--Let the Waters lilt your graces,-- + They alone with limpid kisses lave your leaves above, + Flashing back your sylvan beauty, and in shady places + Peering up with glimmering pebbles, like the eyes of love. + +Next, Maymie, with her hazy cloud of hair, +And the blue skies of eyes beneath it there. +Her dignified and "little lady" airs +Of never either romping up the stairs +Or falling down them; thoughtful everyway +Of others first--The kind of child at play +That "gave up," for the rest, the ripest pear +Or peach or apple in the garden there +Beneath the trees where swooped the airy swing-- +She pushing it, too glad for anything! +Or, in the character of hostess, she +Would entertain her friends delightfully +In her play-house,--with strips of carpet laid +Along the garden-fence within the shade +Of the old apple-trees--where from next yard +Came the two dearest friends in her regard, +The little Crawford girls, Ella and Lu-- +As shy and lovely as the lilies grew +In their idyllic home,--yet sometimes they +Admitted Bud and Alex to their play, +Who did their heavier work and helped them fix +To have a "Festibul"--and brought the bricks +And built the "stove," with a real fire and all, +And stovepipe-joint for chimney, looming tall +And wonderfully smoky--even to +Their childish aspirations, as it blew +And swooped and swirled about them till their sight +Was feverish even as their high delight. +Then Alex, with his freckles, and his freaks +Of temper, and the peach-bloom of his cheeks, +And "_amber-colored_ hair"--his mother said +'Twas that, when others laughed and called it "_red_" +And Alex threw things at them--till they'd call +A truce, agreeing "'t'uz n't red _ut-tall_!" + +But Alex was affectionate beyond +The average child, and was extremely fond +Of the paternal relatives of his +Of whom he once made estimate like this:-- +"_I'm_ only got _two_ brothers,--but my _Pa_ +He's got most brothers'n you ever saw!-- +He's got _seben_ brothers!--Yes, an' they're all my +Seben Uncles!--Uncle John, an' Jim,--an' I' +Got Uncle George, an' Uncle Andy, too, +An' Uncle Frank, an' Uncle Joe.--An' you +_Know_ Uncle _Mart_.--An', all but _him_, they're great +Big mens!--An' nen s Aunt Sarah--she makes eight!-- +I'm got _eight_ uncles!--'cept Aunt Sarah _can't_ +Be ist my _uncle_ 'cause she's ist my _aunt_!" + +Then, next to Alex--and the last indeed +Of these five little ones of whom you read-- +Was baby Lizzie, with her velvet lisp,-- +As though her Elfin lips had caught some wisp +Of floss between them as they strove with speech, +Which ever seemed just in yet out of reach-- +Though what her lips missed, her dark eyes could say +With looks that made her meaning clear as day. + +And, knowing now the children, you must know +The father and the mother they loved so:-- +The father was a swarthy man, black-eyed, +Black-haired, and high of forehead; and, beside +The slender little mother, seemed in truth +A very king of men--since, from his youth, +To his hale manhood _now_--(worthy as then,-- +A lawyer and a leading citizen +Of the proud little town and county-seat-- +His hopes his neighbors', and their fealty sweet)-- +He had known outdoor labor--rain and shine-- +Bleak Winter, and bland Summer--foul and fine. +So Nature had ennobled him and set +Her symbol on him like a coronet: +His lifted brow, and frank, reliant face.-- +Superior of stature as of grace, +Even the children by the spell were wrought +Up to heroics of their simple thought, +And saw him, trim of build, and lithe and straight +And tall, almost, as at the pasture-gate +The towering ironweed the scythe had spared +For their sakes, when The Hired Man declared +It would grow on till it became a _tree_, +With cocoanuts and monkeys in--maybe! + +Yet, though the children, in their pride and awe +And admiration of the father, saw +A being so exalted--even more +Like adoration was the love they bore +The gentle mother.--Her mild, plaintive face +Was purely fair, and haloed with a grace +And sweetness luminous when joy made glad +Her features with a smile; or saintly sad +As twilight, fell the sympathetic gloom +Of any childish grief, or as a room +Were darkened suddenly, the curtain drawn +Across the window and the sunshine gone. +Her brow, below her fair hair's glimmering strands, +Seemed meetest resting-place for blessing hands +Or holiest touches of soft finger-tips +And little roseleaf-cheeks and dewy lips. + +Though heavy household tasks were pitiless, +No little waist or coat or checkered dress +But knew her needle's deftness; and no skill +Matched hers in shaping pleat or flounce or frill; +Or fashioning, in complicate design, +All rich embroideries of leaf and vine, +With tiniest twining tendril,--bud and bloom +And fruit, so like, one's fancy caught perfume +And dainty touch and taste of them, to see +Their semblance wrought in such rare verity. + +Shrined in her sanctity of home and love, +And love's fond service and reward thereof, +Restore her thus, O blessed Memory!-- +Throned in her rocking-chair, and on her knee +Her sewing--her workbasket on the floor +Beside her,--Springtime through the open door +Balmily stealing in and all about +The room; the bees' dim hum, and the far shout +And laughter of the children at their play, +And neighbor-children from across the way +Calling in gleeful challenge--save alone +One boy whose voice sends back no answering tone-- +The boy, prone on the floor, above a book +Of pictures, with a rapt, ecstatic look-- +Even as the mother's, by the selfsame spell, +Is lifted, with a light ineffable-- +As though her senses caught no mortal cry, +But heard, instead, some poem going by. + + The Child-heart is so strange a little thing-- + So mild--so timorously shy and small.-- + When _grown-up_ hearts throb, it goes scampering + Behind the wall, nor dares peer out at all!-- + It is the veriest mouse + That hides in any house-- + So wild a little thing is any Child-heart! + + _Child-heart!--mild heart!-- + Ho, my little wild heart!-- + Come up here to me out o' the dark, + Or let me come to you!_ + + So lorn at times the Child-heart needs must be. + With never one maturer heart for friend + And comrade, whose tear-ripened sympathy + And love might lend it comfort to the end,-- + Whose yearnings, aches and stings. + Over poor little things + Were pitiful as ever any Child-heart. + + _Child-heart!--mild heart!-- + Ho, my little wild heart!-- + Come up here to me out o' the dark, + Or let me come to you!_ + + Times, too, the little Child-heart must be glad-- + Being so young, nor knowing, as _we_ know. + The fact from fantasy, the good from bad, + The joy from woe, the--_all_ that hurts us so! + What wonder then that thus + It hides away from us?-- + So weak a little thing is any Child-heart! + + _Child-heart!--mild heart!-- + Ho, my little wild heart!-- + Come up here to me out o' the dark, + Or let me come to you!_ + + Nay, little Child-heart, you have never need + To fear _us_,--we are weaker far than you-- + Tis _we_ who should be fearful--we indeed + Should hide us, too, as darkly as you do,-- + Safe, as yourself, withdrawn, + Hearing the World roar on + Too willful, woful, awful for the Child-heart! + + _Child-heart!--mild heart!-- + Ho, my little wild heart!-- + Come up here to me out o' the dark, + Or let me come to you!_ + +The clock chats on confidingly; a rose +Taps at the window, as the sunlight throws +A brilliant, jostling checkerwork of shine +And shadow, like a Persian-loom design, +Across the homemade carpet--fades,--and then +The dear old colors are themselves again. +Sounds drop in visiting from everywhere-- +The bluebird's and the robin's trill are there, +Their sweet liquidity diluted some +By dewy orchard spaces they have come: +Sounds of the town, too, and the great highway-- +The Mover-wagons' rumble, and the neigh +Of overtraveled horses, and the bleat +Of sheep and low of cattle through the street-- +A Nation's thoroughfare of hopes and fears, +First blazed by the heroic pioneers +Who gave up old-home idols and set face +Toward the unbroken West, to found a race +And tame a wilderness now mightier than +All peoples and all tracts American. +Blent with all outer sounds, the sounds within:-- +In mild remoteness falls the household din +Of porch and kitchen: the dull jar and thump +Of churning; and the "glung-glung" of the pump, +With sudden pad and skurry of bare feet +Of little outlaws, in from field or street: +The clang of kettle,--rasp of damper-ring +And bang of cookstove-door--and everything +That jingles in a busy kitchen lifts +Its individual wrangling voice and drifts +In sweetest tinny, coppery, pewtery tone +Of music hungry ear has ever known +In wildest famished yearning and conceit +Of youth, to just cut loose and eat and eat!-- +The zest of hunger still incited on +To childish desperation by long-drawn +Breaths of hot, steaming, wholesome things that stew +And blubber, and up-tilt the pot-lids, too, +Filling the sense with zestful rumors of +The dear old-fashioned dinners children love: +Redolent savorings of home-cured meats, +Potatoes, beans, and cabbage; turnips, beets +And parsnips--rarest composite entire +That ever pushed a mortal child's desire +To madness by new-grated fresh, keen, sharp +Horseradish--tang that sets the lips awarp +And watery, anticipating all +The cloyed sweets of the glorious festival.-- +Still add the cinnamony, spicy scents +Of clove, nutmeg, and myriad condiments +In like-alluring whiffs that prophesy +Of sweltering pudding, cake, and custard pie-- +The swooning-sweet aroma haunting all +The house--upstairs and down--porch, parlor, hall +And sitting-room--invading even where +The Hired Man sniffs it in the orchard-air, +And pauses in his pruning of the trees +To note the sun minutely and to--sneeze. + +Then Cousin Rufus comes--the children hear +His hale voice in the old hall, ringing clear +As any bell. Always he came with song +Upon his lips and all the happy throng +Of echoes following him, even as the crowd +Of his admiring little kinsmen--proud +To have a cousin _grown_--and yet as young +Of soul and cheery as the songs he sung. + +He was a student of the law--intent +Soundly to win success, with all it meant; +And so he studied--even as he played,-- +With all his heart: And so it was he made +His gallant fight for fortune--through all stress +Of battle bearing him with cheeriness +And wholesome valor. + + And the children had +Another relative who kept them glad +And joyous by his very merry ways-- +As blithe and sunny as the summer days,-- +Their father's youngest brother--Uncle Mart. +The old "Arabian Nights" he knew by heart-- +"Baron Munchausen," too; and likewise "The +Swiss Family Robinson."--And when these three +Gave out, as he rehearsed them, he could go +Straight on in the same line--a steady flow +Of arabesque invention that his good +Old mother never clearly understood. +He _was_ to be a _printer_--wanted, though, +To be an _actor_.--But the world was "show" +Enough for _him_,--theatric, airy, gay,-- +Each day to him was jolly as a play. +And some poetic symptoms, too, in sooth, +Were certain.--And, from his apprentice youth, +He joyed in verse-quotations--which he took +Out of the old "Type Foundry Specimen Book." +He craved and courted most the favor of +The children.--They were foremost in his love; +And pleasing _them_, he pleased his own boy-heart +And kept it young and fresh in every part. +So was it he devised for them and wrought +To life his quaintest, most romantic thought:-- +Like some lone castaway in alien seas, +He built a house up in the apple-trees, +Out in the corner of the garden, where +No man-devouring native, prowling there, +Might pounce upon them in the dead o' night-- +For lo, their little ladder, slim and light, +They drew up after them. And it was known +That Uncle Mart slipped up sometimes alone +And drew the ladder in, to lie and moon +Over some novel all the afternoon. +And one time Johnty, from the crowd below,-- +Outraged to find themselves deserted so-- +Threw bodily their old black cat up in +The airy fastness, with much yowl and din. +Resulting, while a wild periphery +Of cat went circling to another tree, +And, in impassioned outburst, Uncle Mart +Loomed up, and thus relieved his tragic heart: + + "'_Hence, long-tailed, ebon-eyed, nocturnal ranger! + What led thee hither 'mongst the types and cases? + Didst thou not know that running midnight races + O'er standing types was fraught with imminent danger? + Did hunger lead thee--didst thou think to find + Some rich old cheese to fill thy hungry maw? + Vain hope! for none but literary jaw + Can masticate our cookery for the mind!_'" + +So likewise when, with lordly air and grace, +He strode to dinner, with a tragic face +With ink-spots on it from the office, he +Would aptly quote more "Specimen-poetry--" +Perchance like "'Labor's bread is sweet to eat, +(_Ahem!_) And toothsome is the toiler's meat.'" + +Ah, could you see them _all_, at lull of noon!-- +A sort of _boisterous_ lull, with clink of spoon +And clatter of deflecting knife, and plate +Dropped saggingly, with its all-bounteous weight, +And dragged in place voraciously; and then +Pent exclamations, and the lull again.-- +The garland of glad faces 'round the board-- +Each member of the family restored +To his or her place, with an extra chair +Or two for the chance guests so often there.-- +The father's farmer-client, brought home from +The courtroom, though he "didn't _want_ to come +Tel he jist saw he _hat_ to!" he'd explain, +Invariably, time and time again, +To the pleased wife and hostess, as she pressed +Another cup of coffee on the guest.-- +Or there was Johnty's special chum, perchance, +Or Bud's, or both--each childish countenance +Lit with a higher glow of youthful glee, +To be together thus unbrokenly,-- +Jim Offutt, or Eck Skinner, or George Carr-- +The very nearest chums of Bud's these are,-- +So, very probably, _one_ of the three, +At least, is there with Bud, or _ought_ to be. +Like interchange the town-boys each had known-- +His playmate's dinner better than his own-- +_Yet_ blest that he was ever made to stay +At _Almon Keefer's, any_ blessed day, +For _any_ meal!... Visions of biscuits, hot +And flaky-perfect, with the golden blot +Of molten butter for the center, clear, +Through pools of clover-honey--_dear-o-dear!_-- +With creamy milk for its divine "farewell": +And then, if any one delectable +Might yet exceed in sweetness, O restore +The cherry-cobbler of the days of yore +Made only by Al Keefer's mother!--Why, +The very thought of it ignites the eye +Of memory with rapture--cloys the lip +Of longing, till it seems to ooze and drip +With veriest juice and stain and overwaste +Of that most sweet delirium of taste +That ever visited the childish tongue, +Or proved, as now, the sweetest thing unsung. + + + + +ALMON KEEFER + +Ah, Almon Keefer! what a boy you were, +With your back-tilted hat and careless hair, +And open, honest, fresh, fair face and eyes +With their all-varying looks of pleased surprise +And joyous interest in flower and tree, +And poising humming-bird, and maundering bee. + +The fields and woods he knew; the tireless tramp +With gun and dog; and the night-fisher's camp-- +No other boy, save Bee Lineback, had won +Such brilliant mastery of rod and gun. +Even in his earliest childhood had he shown +These traits that marked him as his father's own. +Dogs all paid Almon honor and bow-wowed +Allegiance, let him come in any crowd +Of rabbit-hunting town-boys, even though +His own dog "Sleuth" rebuked their acting so +With jealous snarls and growlings. + + But the best +Of Almon's virtues--leading all the rest-- +Was his great love of books, and skill as well +In reading them aloud, and by the spell +Thereof enthralling his mute listeners, as +They grouped about him in the orchard grass, +Hinging their bare shins in the mottled shine +And shade, as they lay prone, or stretched supine +Beneath their favorite tree, with dreamy eyes +And Argo-fandes voyaging the skies. +"Tales of the Ocean" was the name of one +Old dog's-eared book that was surpassed by none +Of all the glorious list.--Its back was gone, +But its vitality went bravely on +In such delicious tales of land and sea +As may not ever perish utterly. +Of still more dubious caste, "Jack Sheppard" drew +Full admiration; and "Dick Turpin," too. +And, painful as the fact is to convey, +In certain lurid tales of their own day, +These boys found thieving heroes and outlaws +They hailed with equal fervor of applause: +"The League of the Miami"--why, the name +Alone was fascinating--is the same, +In memory, this venerable hour +Of moral wisdom shorn of all its power, +As it unblushingly reverts to when +The old barn was "the Cave," and hears again +The signal blown, outside the buggy-shed-- +The drowsy guard within uplifts his head, +And "'_Who goes there?_'" is called, in bated breath-- +The challenge answered in a hush of death,-- +"Sh!--'_Barney Gray!_'" And then "'_What do you seek?_'" +"'_Stables of The League!_'" the voice comes spent and weak, +For, ha! the _Law_ is on the "Chieftain's" trail-- +Tracked to his very lair!--Well, what avail? +The "secret entrance" opens--closes.--So +The "Robber-Captain" thus outwits his foe; +And, safe once more within his "cavern-halls," +He shakes his clenched fist at the warped plank-walls +And mutters his defiance through the cracks +At the balked Enemy's retreating backs +As the loud horde flees pell-mell down the lane, +And--_Almon Keefer_ is himself again! + +Excepting few, they were not books indeed +Of deep import that Almon chose to read;-- +Less fact than fiction.--Much he favored those-- +If not in poetry, in hectic prose-- +That made our native Indian a wild, +Feathered and fine-preened hero that a child +Could recommend as just about the thing +To make a god of, or at least a king. +Aside from Almon's own books--two or three-- +His store of lore The Township Library +Supplied him weekly: All the books with "or"s-- +Sub-titled--lured him--after "Indian Wars," +And "Life of Daniel Boone,"--not to include +Some few books spiced with humor,--"Robin Hood" +And rare "Don Quixote."--And one time he took +"Dadd's Cattle Doctor."... How he hugged the book +And hurried homeward, with internal glee +And humorous spasms of expectancy!-- +All this confession--as he promptly made +It, the day later, writhing in the shade +Of the old apple-tree with Johnty and +Bud, Noey Bixler, and The Hired Hand-- +Was quite as funny as the book was not.... +O Wonderland of wayward Childhood! what +An easy, breezy realm of summer calm +And dreamy gleam and gloom and bloom and balm +Thou art!--The Lotus-Land the poet sung, +It is the Child-World while the heart beats young.... + + While the heart beats young!--O the splendor of the Spring, + With all her dewy jewels on, is not so fair a thing! + The fairest, rarest morning of the blossom-time of May + Is not so sweet a season as the season of to-day + While Youth's diviner climate folds and holds us, close caressed, + As we feel our mothers with us by the touch of face and breast;-- + Our bare feet in the meadows, and our fancies up among + The airy clouds of morning--while the heart beats young. + + While the heart beats young and our pulses leap and dance. + With every day a holiday and life a glad romance,-- + We hear the birds with wonder, and with wonder watch their flight-- + Standing still the more enchanted, both of hearing and of sight, + When they have vanished wholly,--for, in fancy, wing-to-wing + We fly to Heaven with them; and, returning, still we sing + The praises of this lower Heaven with tireless voice and tongue, + Even as the Master sanctions--while the heart beats young. + + While the heart beats young!--While the heart beats young! + O green and gold old Earth of ours, with azure overhung + And looped with rainbows!--grant us yet this grassy lap of thine-- + We would be still thy children, through the shower and the shine! + So pray we, lisping, whispering, in childish love and trust + With our beseeching hands and faces lifted from the dust + By fervor of the poem, all unwritten and unsung, + Thou givest us in answer, while the heart beats young. + + + + +NOEY BIXLER + +Another hero of those youthful years +Returns, as Noey Bixler's name appears. +And Noey--if in any special way-- +Was notably good-natured.--Work or play +He entered into with selfsame delight-- +A wholesome interest that made him quite +As many friends among the old as young,-- +So everywhere were Noey's praises sung. + +And he was awkward, fat and overgrown, +With a round full-moon face, that fairly shone +As though to meet the simile's demand. +And, cumbrous though he seemed, both eye and hand +Were dowered with the discernment and deft skill +Of the true artisan: He shaped at will, +In his old father's shop, on rainy days, +Little toy-wagons, and curved-runner sleighs; +The trimmest bows and arrows--fashioned, too. +Of "seasoned timber," such as Noey knew +How to select, prepare, and then complete, +And call his little friends in from the street. +"The very _best_ bow," Noey used to say, +"Haint made o' ash ner hick'ry thataway!-- +But you git _mulberry_--the _bearin_'-tree, +Now mind ye! and you fetch the piece to me, +And lem me git it _seasoned_; then, i gum! +I'll make a bow 'at you kin brag on some! +Er--ef you can't git _mulberry_,--you bring +Me a' old _locus_' hitch-post, and i jing! +I'll make a bow o' _that_ 'at _common_ bows +Won't dast to pick on ner turn up their nose!" +And Noey knew the woods, and all the trees, +And thickets, plants and myriad mysteries +Of swamp and bottom-land. And he knew where +The ground-hog hid, and why located there.-- +He knew all animals that burrowed, swam, +Or lived in tree-tops: And, by race and dam, +He knew the choicest, safest deeps wherein +Fish-traps might flourish nor provoke the sin +Of theft in some chance peeking, prying sneak, +Or town-boy, prowling up and down the creek. +All four-pawed creatures tamable--he knew +Their outer and their inner natures too; +While they, in turn, were drawn to him as by +Some subtle recognition of a tie +Of love, as true as truth from end to end, +Between themselves and this strange human friend. +The same with birds--he knew them every one, +And he could "name them, too, without a gun." +No wonder _Johnty_ loved him, even to +The verge of worship.--Noey led him through +The art of trapping redbirds--yes, and taught +Him how to keep them when he had them caught-- +What food they needed, and just where to swing +The cage, if he expected them to _sing_. + +And _Bud_ loved Noey, for the little pair +Of stilts he made him; or the stout old hair +Trunk Noey put on wheels, and laid a track +Of scantling-railroad for it in the back +Part of the barn-lot; or the cross-bow, made +Just like a gun, which deadly weapon laid +Against his shoulder as he aimed, and--"_Sping!_" +He'd hear the rusty old nail zoon and sing-- +And _zip!_ your Mr. Bluejay's wing would drop +A farewell-feather from the old tree-top! +And _Maymie_ loved him, for the very small +But perfect carriage for her favorite doll-- +A _lady's_ carriage--not a _baby_-cab,-- +But oilcloth top, and two seats, lined with drab +And trimmed with white lace-paper from a case +Of shaving-soap his uncle bought some place +At auction once. + + And _Alex_ loved him yet +The best, when Noey brought him, for a pet, +A little flying-squirrel, with great eyes-- +Big as a child's: And, childlike otherwise, +It was at first a timid, tremulous, coy, +Retiring little thing that dodged the boy +And tried to keep in Noey's pocket;--till, +In time, responsive to his patient will, +It became wholly docile, and content +With its new master, as he came and went,-- +The squirrel clinging flatly to his breast, +Or sometimes scampering its craziest +Around his body spirally, and then +Down to his very heels and up again. + +And _Little Lizzie_ loved him, as a bee +Loves a great ripe red apple--utterly. +For Noey's ruddy morning-face she drew +The window-blind, and tapped the window, too; +Afar she hailed his coming, as she heard +His tuneless whistling--sweet as any bird +It seemed to her, the one lame bar or so +Of old "Wait for the Wagon"--hoarse and low +The sound was,--so that, all about the place, +Folks joked and said that Noey "whistled bass"-- +The light remark originally made +By Cousin Rufus, who knew notes, and played +The flute with nimble skill, and taste as wall, +And, critical as he was musical, +Regarded Noey's constant whistling thus +"Phenominally unmelodious." +Likewise when Uncle Mart, who shared the love +Of jest with Cousin Rufus hand-in-glove, +Said "Noey couldn't whistle '_Bonny Doon_' +Even! and, _he'd_ bet, couldn't carry a tune +If it had handles to it!" + + --But forgive +The deviations here so fugitive, +And turn again to Little Lizzie, whose +High estimate of Noey we shall choose +Above all others.--And to her he was +Particularly lovable because +He laid the woodland's harvest at her feet.-- +He brought her wild strawberries, honey-sweet +And dewy-cool, in mats of greenest moss +And leaves, all woven over and across +With tender, biting "tongue-grass," and "sheep-sour," +And twin-leaved beach-mast, prankt with bud and flower +Of every gypsy-blossom of the wild, +Dark, tangled forest, dear to any child.-- +All these in season. Nor could barren, drear, +White and stark-featured Winter interfere +With Noey's rare resources: Still the same +He blithely whistled through the snow and came +Beneath the window with a Fairy sled; +And Little Lizzie, bundled heels-and-head, +He took on such excursions of delight +As even "Old Santy" with his reindeer might +Have envied her! And, later, when the snow +Was softening toward Springtime and the glow +Of steady sunshine smote upon it,--then +Came the magician Noey yet again-- +While all the children were away a day +Or two at Grandma's!--and behold when they +Got home once more;--there, towering taller than +The doorway--stood a mighty, old Snow-Man! + +A thing of peerless art--a masterpiece +Doubtless unmatched by even classic Greece +In heyday of Praxiteles.--Alone +It loomed in lordly grandeur all its own. +And steadfast, too, for weeks and weeks it stood, +The admiration of the neighborhood +As well as of the children Noey sought +Only to honor in the work he wrought. +The traveler paid it tribute, as he passed +Along the highway--paused and, turning, cast +A lingering, last look--as though to take +A vivid print of it, for memory's sake, +To lighten all the empty, aching miles +Beyond with brighter fancies, hopes and smiles. +The cynic put aside his biting wit +And tacitly declared in praise of it; +And even the apprentice-poet of the town +Rose to impassioned heights, and then sat down +And penned a panegyric scroll of rhyme +That made the Snow-Man famous for all time. + +And though, as now, the ever warmer sun +Of summer had so melted and undone +The perishable figure that--alas!-- +Not even in dwindled white against the grass-- +Was left its latest and minutest ghost, +The children yet--_materially_, almost-- +Beheld it--circled 'round it hand-in-hand-- +(Or rather 'round the place it used to stand)-- +With "Ring-a-round-a-rosy! Bottle full +O' posey!" and, with shriek and laugh, would pull +From seeming contact with it--just as when +It was the _real-est_ of old Snow-Men. + + + + +"A NOTED TRAVELER" + +Even in such a scene of senseless play +The children were surprised one summer-day +By a strange man who called across the fence, +Inquiring for their father's residence; +And, being answered that this was the place, +Opened the gate, and with a radiant face, +Came in and sat down with them in the shade +And waited--till the absent father made +His noon appearance, with a warmth and zest +That told he had no ordinary guest +In this man whose low-spoken name he knew +At once, demurring as the stranger drew +A stuffy notebook out and turned and set +A big fat finger on a page and let +The writing thereon testify instead +Of further speech. And as the father read +All silently, the curious children took +Exacting inventory both of book +And man:--He wore a long-napped white fur-hat +Pulled firmly on his head, and under that +Rather long silvery hair, or iron-gray-- +For he was not an old man,--anyway, +Not beyond sixty. And he wore a pair +Of square-framed spectacles--or rather there +Were two more than a pair,--the extra two +Flared at the corners, at the eyes' side-view, +In as redundant vision as the eyes +Of grasshoppers or bees or dragonflies. +Later the children heard the father say +He was "A Noted Traveler," and would stay +Some days with them--In which time host and guest +Discussed, alone, in deepest interest, +Some vague, mysterious matter that defied +The wistful children, loitering outside +The spare-room door. There Bud acquired a quite +New list of big words--such as "Disunite," +And "Shibboleth," and "Aristocracy," +And "Juggernaut," and "Squatter Sovereignty," +And "Anti-slavery," "Emancipate," +"Irrepressible conflict," and "The Great +Battle of Armageddon"--obviously +A pamphlet brought from Washington, D. C., +And spread among such friends as might occur +Of like views with "The Noted Traveler." + + + + +A PROSPECTIVE VISIT + +While _any_ day was notable and dear +That gave the children Noey, history here +Records his advent emphasized indeed +With sharp italics, as he came to feed +The stock one special morning, fair and bright, +When Johnty and Bud met him, with delight +Unusual even as their extra dress-- +Garbed as for holiday, with much excess +Of proud self-consciousness and vain conceit +In their new finery.--Far up the street +They called to Noey, as he came, that they, +As promised, both were going back that day +To _his_ house with him! + + And by time that each +Had one of Noey's hands--ceasing their speech +And coyly anxious, in their new attire, +To wake the comment of their mute desire,-- +Noey seemed rendered voiceless. Quite a while +They watched him furtively.--He seemed to smile +As though he would conceal it; and they saw +Him look away, and his lips purse and draw +In curious, twitching spasms, as though he might +Be whispering,--while in his eye the white +Predominated strangely.--Then the spell +Gave way, and his pent speech burst audible: +"They wuz two stylish little boys, + and they wuz mighty bold ones, +Had two new pairs o' britches made + out o' their daddy's old ones!" +And at the inspirational outbreak, +Both joker and his victims seemed to take +An equal share of laughter,--and all through +Their morning visit kept recurring to +The funny words and jingle of the rhyme +That just kept getting funnier all the time. + + + + +AT NOEY'S HOUSE + +At Noey's house--when they arrived with him-- +How snug seemed everything, and neat and trim: +The little picket-fence, and little gate-- +It's little pulley, and its little weight,-- +All glib as clock-work, as it clicked behind +Them, on the little red brick pathway, lined +With little paint-keg-vases and teapots +Of wee moss-blossoms and forgetmenots: +And in the windows, either side the door, +Were ranged as many little boxes more +Of like old-fashioned larkspurs, pinks and moss +And fern and phlox; while up and down across +Them rioted the morning-glory-vines +On taut-set cotton-strings, whose snowy lines +Whipt in and out and under the bright green +Like basting-threads; and, here and there between, +A showy, shiny hollyhock would flare +Its pink among the white and purple there.-- +And still behind the vines, the children saw +A strange, bleached, wistful face that seemed to draw +A vague, indefinite sympathy. A face +It was of some newcomer to the place.-- +In explanation, Noey, briefly, said +That it was "Jason," as he turned and led +The little fellows 'round the house to show +Them his menagerie of pets. And so +For quite a time the face of the strange guest +Was partially forgotten, as they pressed +About the squirrel-cage and rousted both +The lazy inmates out, though wholly loath +To whirl the wheel for them.--And then with awe +They walked 'round Noey's big pet owl, and saw +Him film his great, clear, liquid eyes and stare +And turn and turn and turn his head 'round there +The same way they kept circling--as though he +Could turn it one way thus eternally. + +Behind the kitchen, then, with special pride +Noey stirred up a terrapin inside +The rain-barrel where he lived, with three or four +Little mud-turtles of a size not more +In neat circumference than the tiny toy +Dumb-watches worn by every little boy. + +Then, back of the old shop, beneath the tree +Of "rusty-coats," as Noey called them, he +Next took the boys, to show his favorite new +Pet 'coon--pulled rather coyly into view +Up through a square hole in the bottom of +An old inverted tub he bent above, +Yanking a little chain, with "Hey! you, sir! +Here's _comp'ny_ come to see you, Bolivur!" +Explanatory, he went on to say, +"I named him '_Bolivur_' jes thisaway,-- +He looks so _round_ and _ovalish_ and _fat_, +'Peared like no other name 'ud fit but that." + +Here Noey's father called and sent him on +Some errand. "Wait," he said--"I won't be gone +A half a' hour.--Take Bud, and go on in +Where Jason is, tel I git back agin." + +Whoever _Jason_ was, they found him there +Still at the front-room window.--By his chair +Leaned a new pair of crutches; and from one +Knee down, a leg was bandaged.--"Jason done +That-air with one o' these-'ere tools _we_ call +A '_shin-hoe_'--but a _foot-adz_ mostly all +_Hardware_-store-keepers calls 'em."--(_Noey_ made +This explanation later.) + + Jason paid +But little notice to the boys as they +Came in the room:--An idle volume lay +Upon his lap--the only book in sight-- +And Johnty read the title,--"Light, More Light, +There's Danger in the Dark,"--though _first_ and best-- +In fact, the _whole_ of Jason's interest +Seemed centered on a little _dog_--one pet +Of Noey's all uncelebrated yet-- +Though _Jason_, certainly, avowed his worth, +And niched him over all the pets on earth-- +As the observant Johnty would relate +The _Jason_-episode, and imitate +The all-enthusiastic speech and air +Of Noey's kinsman and his tribute there:-- + + + + +"THAT LITTLE DOG" + +"That little dog 'ud scratch at that door +And go on a-whinin' two hours before +He'd ever let up! _There!_--Jane: Let him in.-- +(Hah, there, you little rat!) Look at him grin! + Come down off o' that!-- + W'y, look at him! (_Drat +You! you-rascal-you!_)--bring me that hat! +Look _out!_--He'll snap _you!_--_He_ wouldn't let +_You_ take it away from him, now you kin bet! +That little rascal's jist natchurly mean.-- +I tell you, I _never_ (_Git out!! _) never seen +A _spunkier_ little rip! (_Scratch to git in_, +And _now_ yer a-scratchin' to git _out_ agin! +Jane: Let him out!) Now, watch him from here +Out through the winder!--You notice one ear +Kindo' _in_ side-_out_, like he holds it?--Well, +_He's_ got a _tick_ in it--_I_ kin tell! + Yes, and he's cunnin'-- + Jist watch him a-runnin', +_Sidelin'_--see!--like he ain't '_plum'd true_' +And legs don't 'track' as they'd ort to do:-- +Plowin' his nose through the weeds--I jing! +Ain't he jist cuter'n anything! + +"W'y, that little dog's got _grown_-people's sense!-- +See how he gits out under the fence?-- +And watch him a-whettin' his hind-legs 'fore +His dead square run of a miled er more-- +'Cause _Noey_'s a-comin', and Trip allus knows +When _Noey_'s a-comin'--and off he goes!-- +Putts out to meet him and--_There they come now!_ +Well-sir! it's raially singalar how + That dog kin _tell_,-- + But he knows as well +When Noey's a-comin' home!--Reckon his _smell_ +'Ud carry two miled?--You needn't to _smile_-- +He runs to meet _him_, ever'-once-n-a-while, +Two miled and over--when he's slipped away +And left him at home here, as he's done to-day-- +'Thout ever knowin' where Noey wuz goin'-- +But that little dog allus hits the right way! +Hear him a-whinin' and scratchin' agin?-- +(_Little tormentin' fice!_) Jane: Let him in. + + "--You say he ain't _there?_-- + Well now, I declare!-- +Lem _me_ limp out and look! ... I wunder where-- +_Heuh_, Trip!--_Heuh_, Trip!--_Heuh_, Trip!... _There_-- +_There_ he is!--Little sneak!--What-a'-you-'bout?-- +_There_ he is--quiled up as meek as a mouse, +His tail turnt up like a teakittle-spout, +A-sunnin' hisse'f at the side o' the house! +_Next_ time you scratch, sir, you'll haf to git in, +My fine little feller, the best way you kin! +--Noey _he_ learns him sich capers!--And they-- +_Both_ of 'em's ornrier every day!-- +_Both_ tantalizin' and meaner'n sin-- +Allus a--(_Listen there!_)--Jane: Let him in. + +"--O! yer so _innocent!_ hangin' yer head!-- +(Drat ye! you'd _better_ git under the bed!) + --Listen at that!-- + He's tackled the cat!-- +Hah, there! you little rip! come out o' that!-- +Git yer blame little eyes scratched out +'Fore you know what yer talkin' about!-- +_Here!_ come away from there!--(Let him alone-- +He'll snap _you_, I tell ye, as quick as a bone!) +_Hi_, Trip!--_Hey_, here!--What-a'-you-'bout!-- +_Oo! ouch!_ 'Ll I'll be blamed!--_Blast ye!_ GIT OUT! +... O, it ain't nothin'--jist _scratched_ me, you see.-- +Hadn't no idy he'd try to bite _me_! +_Plague take him!_--Bet he'll not try _that_ agin!-- +Hear him yelp.--(_Pore feller!_) Jane: Let him in." + + + + +THE LOEHRS AND THE HAMMONDS + +"Hey, Bud! O Bud!" rang out a gleeful call,-- +"_The Loehrs is come to your house!_" And a small +But very much elated little chap, +In snowy linen-suit and tasseled cap, +Leaped from the back-fence just across the street +From Bixlers', and came galloping to meet +His equally delighted little pair +Of playmates, hurrying out to join him there-- +"_The Loehrs is come!--The Loehrs is come!_" his glee +Augmented to a pitch of ecstasy +Communicated wildly, till the cry +"_The Loehrs is come!_" in chorus quavered high +And thrilling as some paean of challenge or +Soul-stirring chant of armied conqueror. +And who this _avant courier_ of "the Loehrs"?-- +This happiest of all boys out-o'-doors-- +Who but Will Pierson, with his heart's excess +Of summer-warmth and light and breeziness! +"From our front winder I 'uz first to see +'Em all a-drivin' into town!" bragged he-- +"An' seen 'em turnin' up the alley where +_Your_ folks lives at. An' John an' Jake wuz there +Both in the wagon;--yes, an' Willy, too; +An' Mary--Yes, an' Edith--with bran-new +An' purtiest-trimmed hats 'at ever wuz!-- +An' Susan, an' Janey.--An' the _Hammonds-uz_ +In their fine buggy 'at they're ridin' roun' +So much, all over an' aroun' the town +An' _ever_'wheres,--them _city_-people who's +A-visutin' at Loehrs-uz!" + + Glorious news!-- +Even more glorious when verified +In the boys' welcoming eyes of love and pride, +As one by one they greeted their old friends +And neighbors.--Nor until their earth-life ends +Will that bright memory become less bright +Or dimmed indeed. + + ... Again, at candle-light, +The faces all are gathered. And how glad +The Mother's features, knowing that she had +Her dear, sweet Mary Loehr back again.-- +She always was so proud of her; and then +The dear girl, in return, was happy, too, +And with a heart as loving, kind and true +As that maturer one which seemed to blend +As one the love of mother and of friend. +From time to time, as hand-in-hand they sat, +The fair girl whispered something low, whereat +A tender, wistful look would gather in +The mother-eyes; and then there would begin +A sudden cheerier talk, directed to +The stranger guests--the man and woman who, +It was explained, were coming now to make +Their temporary home in town for sake +Of the wife's somewhat failing health. Yes, they +Were city-people, seeking rest this way, +The man said, answering a query made +By some well meaning neighbor--with a shade +Of apprehension in the answer.... No,-- +They had no _children_. As he answered so, +The man's arm went about his wife, and she +Leant toward him, with her eyes lit prayerfully: +Then she arose--he following--and bent +Above the little sleeping innocent +Within the cradle at the mother's side-- +He patting her, all silent, as she cried.-- +Though, haply, in the silence that ensued, +His musings made melodious interlude. + + In the warm, health-giving weather + My poor pale wife and I + Drive up and down the little town + And the pleasant roads thereby: + Out in the wholesome country + We wind, from the main highway, + In through the wood's green solitudes-- + Fair as the Lord's own Day. + + We have lived so long together. + And joyed and mourned as one, + That each with each, with a look for speech, + Or a touch, may talk as none + But Love's elect may comprehend-- + Why, the touch of her hand on mine + Speaks volume-wise, and the smile of her eyes, + To me, is a song divine. + + There are many places that lure us:-- + "The Old Wood Bridge" just west + Of town we know--and the creek below, + And the banks the boys love best: + And "Beech Grove," too, on the hill-top; + And "The Haunted House" beyond, + With its roof half off, and its old pump-trough + Adrift in the roadside pond. + + We find our way to "The Marshes"-- + At least where they used to be; + And "The Old Camp Grounds"; and "The Indian Mounds," + And the trunk of "The Council Tree:" + We have crunched and splashed through "Flint-bed Ford"; + And at "Old Big Bee-gum Spring" + We have stayed the cup, half lifted up. + Hearing the redbird sing. + + And then, there is "Wesley Chapel," + With its little graveyard, lone + At the crossroads there, though the sun sets fair + On wild-rose, mound and stone ... + A wee bed under the willows-- + My wife's hand on my own-- + And our horse stops, too ... And we hear the coo + Of a dove in undertone. + + The dusk, the dew, and the silence. + "Old Charley" turns his head + Homeward then by the pike again, + Though never a word is said-- + One more stop, and a lingering one-- + After the fields and farms,-- + At the old Toll Gate, with the woman await + With a little girl in her arms. + + +The silence sank--Floretty came to call +The children in the kitchen, where they all +Went helter-skeltering with shout and din +Enough to drown most sanguine silence in,-- +For well indeed they knew that summons meant +Taffy and popcorn--so with cheers they went. + + + + +THE HIRED MAN AND FLORETTY + +The Hired Man's supper, which he sat before, +In near reach of the wood-box, the stove-door +And one leaf of the kitchen-table, was +Somewhat belated, and in lifted pause +His dextrous knife was balancing a bit +Of fried mush near the port awaiting it. + +At the glad children's advent--gladder still +To find _him_ there--"Jest tickled fit to kill +To see ye all!" he said, with unctious cheer.-- +"I'm tryin'-like to he'p Floretty here +To git things cleared away and give ye room +Accordin' to yer stren'th. But I p'sume +It's a pore boarder, as the poet says, +That quarrels with his victuals, so I guess +I'll take another wedge o' that-air cake, +Florett', that you're a-_learnin_' how to bake." +He winked and feigned to swallow painfully.-- + +"Jest 'fore ye all come in, Floretty she +Was boastin' 'bout her _biscuits_--and they _air_ +As good--sometimes--as you'll find anywhere.-- +But, women gits to braggin' on their _bread_, +I'm s'picious 'bout their _pie_--as Danty said." +This raillery Floretty strangely seemed +To take as compliment, and fairly beamed +With pleasure at it all. + + --"Speakin' o' _bread_-- +When she come here to live," The Hired Man said,-- +"Never ben out o' _Freeport_ 'fore she come +Up here,--of course she needed '_sperience_ some.-- +So, one day, when yer Ma was goin' to set +The risin' fer some bread, she sent Florett +To borry _leaven_, 'crost at Ryans'--So, +She went and asked fer _twelve_.--She didn't _know_, +But thought, _whatever_ 'twuz, that she could keep +_One_ fer _herse'f_, she said. O she wuz deep!" + +Some little evidence of favor hailed +The Hired Man's humor; but it wholly failed +To touch the serious Susan Loehr, whose air +And thought rebuked them all to listening there +To her brief history of the _city_-man +And his pale wife--"A sweeter woman than +_She_ ever saw!"--So Susan testified,-- +And so attested all the Loehrs beside.-- +So entertaining was the history, that +The Hired Man, in the corner where he sat +In quiet sequestration, shelling corn, +Ceased wholly, listening, with a face forlorn +As Sorrow's own, while Susan, John and Jake +Told of these strangers who had come to make +Some weeks' stay in the town, in hopes to gain +Once more the health the wife had sought in vain: +Their doctor, in the city, used to know +The Loehrs--Dan and Rachel--years ago,-- +And so had sent a letter and request +For them to take a kindly interest +In favoring the couple all they could-- +To find some home-place for them, if they would, +Among their friends in town. He ended by +A dozen further lines, explaining why +His patient must have change of scene and air-- +New faces, and the simple friendships there +With _them_, which might, in time, make her forget +A grief that kept her ever brooding yet +And wholly melancholy and depressed,-- +Nor yet could she find sleep by night nor rest +By day, for thinking--thinking--thinking still \ +Upon a grief beyond the doctor's skill,-- +The death of her one little girl. + + "Pore thing!" +Floretty sighed, and with the turkey-wing +Brushed off the stove-hearth softly, and peered in +The kettle of molasses, with her thin +Voice wandering into song unconsciously-- +In purest, if most witless, sympathy.-- + + "'Then sleep no more: + Around thy heart + Some ten-der dream may i-dlee play. + But mid-night song, + With mad-jick art, + Will chase that dree muh-way!'" + +"That-air besetment of Floretty's," said +The Hired Man,--"_singin_--she _inhairited_,-- +Her _father_ wuz addicted--same as her-- +To singin'--yes, and played the dulcimer! +But--gittin' back,--I s'pose yer talkin' 'bout +Them _Hammondses_. Well, Hammond he gits out +_Pattents_ on things--inventions-like, I'm told-- +And's got more money'n a house could hold! +And yit he can't git up no pattent-right +To do away with _dyin'_.--And he might +Be worth a _million_, but he couldn't find +Nobody sellin' _health_ of any kind!... +But they's no thing onhandier fer _me_ +To use than other people's misery.-- +Floretty, hand me that-air skillet there +And lem me git 'er het up, so's them-air +Childern kin have their popcorn." + + It was good +To hear him now, and so the children stood +Closer about him, waiting. + + "Things to _eat_," +The Hired Man went on, "'s mighty hard to beat! +Now, when _I_ wuz a boy, we was so pore, +My parunts couldn't 'ford popcorn no more +To pamper _me_ with;--so, I hat to go +_Without_ popcorn--sometimes a _year_ er so!-- +And _suffer'n' saints!_ how hungry I would git +Fer jest one other chance--like this--at it! +Many and many a time I've _dreamp_', at night, +About popcorn,--all busted open white, +And hot, you know--and jest enough o' salt +And butter on it fer to find no fault-- +_Oomh!_--Well! as I was goin' on to say,-- +After a-_dreamin_' of it thataway, +_Then_ havin' to wake up and find it's all +A _dream_, and hain't got no popcorn at-tall, +Ner haint _had_ none--I'd think, '_Well, where's the use!_' +And jest lay back and sob the plaster'n' loose! +And I have _prayed_, what_ever_ happened, it +'Ud eether be popcorn er death!.... And yit +I've noticed--more'n likely so have you-- +That things don't happen when you _want_ 'em to." + +And thus he ran on artlessly, with speech +And work in equal exercise, till each +Tureen and bowl brimmed white. And then he greased +The saucers ready for the wax, and seized +The fragrant-steaming kettle, at a sign +Made by Floretty; and, each child in line, +He led out to the pump--where, in the dim +New coolness of the night, quite near to him +He felt Floretty's presence, fresh and sweet +As ... dewy night-air after kitchen-heat. + +There, still, with loud delight of laugh and jest, +They plied their subtle alchemy with zest-- +Till, sudden, high above their tumult, welled +Out of the sitting-room a song which held +Them stilled in some strange rapture, listening +To the sweet blur of voices chorusing:-- + + "'When twilight approaches the season + That ever is sacred to song, + Does some one repeat my name over, + And sigh that I tarry so long? + And is there a chord in the music + That's missed when my voice is away?-- + And a chord in each heart that awakens + Regret at my wearisome stay-ay-- + Regret at my wearisome stay.'" + +All to himself, The Hired Man thought--"Of course +_They'll_ sing _Floretty_ homesick!" + + ... O strange source +Of ecstasy! O mystery of Song!-- +To hear the dear old utterance flow along:-- + + "'Do they set me a chair near the table + When evening's home-pleasures are nigh?-- + When the candles are lit in the parlor. + And the stars in the calm azure sky.'"... + +Just then the moonlight sliced the porch slantwise, +And flashed in misty spangles in the eyes +Floretty clenched--while through the dark--"I jing!" +A voice asked, "Where's that song '_you'd_ learn to sing +Ef I sent you the _ballat_?'--which I done +Last I was home at Freeport.--S'pose you run +And git it--and we'll all go in to where +They'll know the notes and sing it fer ye there." +And up the darkness of the old stairway +Floretty fled, without a word to say-- +Save to herself some whisper muffled by +Her apron, as she wiped her lashes dry. + +Returning, with a letter, which she laid +Upon the kitchen-table while she made +A hasty crock of "float,"--poured thence into +A deep glass dish of iridescent hue +And glint and sparkle, with an overflow +Of froth to crown it, foaming white as snow.-- +And then--poundcake, and jelly-cake as rare, +For its delicious complement,--with air +Of Hebe mortalized, she led her van +Of votaries, rounded by The Hired Man. + + + + +THE EVENING COMPANY + +Within the sitting-room, the company +Had been increased in number. Two or three +Young couples had been added: Emma King, +Ella and Mary Mathers--all could sing +Like veritable angels--Lydia Martin, too, +And Nelly Millikan.--What songs they knew!-- + + _"'Ever of Thee--wherever I may be, + Fondly I'm drea-m-ing ever of thee!_'" + +And with their gracious voices blend the grace +Of Warsaw Barnett's tenor; and the bass +Unfathomed of Wick Chapman--Fancy still +Can _feel_, as well as _hear_ it, thrill on thrill, +Vibrating plainly down the backs of chairs +And through the wall and up the old hall-stairs.-- +Indeed young Chapman's voice especially +Attracted _Mr. Hammond_--For, said he, +Waiving the most Elysian sweetness of +The _ladies_' voices--altitudes above +The _man's_ for sweetness;--_but_--as _contrast_, would +Not Mr. Chapman be so very good +As, just now, to oblige _all_ with--in fact, +Some sort of _jolly_ song,--to counteract +In part, at least, the sad, pathetic trend +Of music _generally_. Which wish our friend +"The Noted Traveler" made second to +With heartiness--and so each, in review, +Joined in--until the radiant _basso_ cleared +His wholly unobstructed throat and peered +Intently at the ceiling--voice and eye +As opposite indeed as earth and sky.-- +Thus he uplifted his vast bass and let +It roam at large the memories booming yet: + + "'Old Simon the Cellarer keeps a rare store + Of Malmsey and Malvoi-sie, + Of Cyprus, and who can say how many more?-- + But a chary old so-u-l is he-e-ee-- + A chary old so-u-l is he! + Of hock and Canary he never doth fail; + And all the year 'round, there is brewing of ale;-- + Yet he never aileth, he quaintly doth say, + While he keeps to his sober six flagons a day.'" + +... And then the chorus--the men's voices all +_Warred_ in it--like a German Carnival.-- +Even _Mrs_. Hammond smiled, as in her youth, +Hearing her husband--And in veriest truth +"The Noted Traveler's" ever-present hat +Seemed just relaxed a little, after that, +As at conclusion of the Bacchic song +He stirred his "float" vehemently and long. + +Then Cousin Rufus with his flute, and art +Blown blithely through it from both soul and heart-- +Inspired to heights of mastery by the glad, +Enthusiastic audience he had +In the young ladies of a town that knew +No other flutist,--nay, nor _wanted_ to, +Since they had heard _his_ "Polly Hopkin's Waltz," +Or "Rickett's Hornpipe," with its faultless faults, +As rendered solely, he explained, "by ear," +Having but heard it once, Commencement Year, +At "Old Ann Arbor." + + Little Maymie now +Seemed "friends" with _Mr. Hammond_--anyhow, +Was lifted to his lap--where settled, she-- +Enthroned thus, in her dainty majesty, +Gained _universal_ audience--although +Addressing him alone:--"I'm come to show +You my new Red-blue pencil; and _she_ says"-- +(Pointing to _Mrs._ Hammond)--"that she guess' +You'll make a _picture_ fer me." + + "And what _kind_ +Of picture?" Mr. Hammond asked, inclined +To serve the child as bidden, folding square +The piece of paper she had brought him there.-- +"I don't know," Maymie said--"only ist make +A _little dirl_, like me!" + + He paused to take +A sharp view of the child, and then he drew-- +Awhile with red, and then awhile with blue-- +The outline of a little girl that stood +In converse with a wolf in a great wood; +And she had on a hood and cloak of red-- +As Maymie watched--"_Red Riding Hood!_" she said. +"And who's '_Red Riding Hood'?_" + + "W'y, don't _you_ know?" +Asked little Maymie-- + + But the man looked so +All uninformed, that little Maymie could +But tell him _all about_ Red Riding Hood. + + + + +MAYMIE'S STORY OF RED RIDING HOOD + +W'y, one time wuz a little-weenty dirl, +An' she wuz named Red Riding Hood, 'cause her-- +Her _Ma_ she maked a little red cloak fer her +'At turnt up over her head--An' it 'uz all +Ist one piece o' red cardinal 'at 's like +The drate-long stockin's the store-keepers has.-- +O! it 'uz purtiest cloak in all the world +An' _all_ this town er anywheres they is! +An' so, one day, her Ma she put it on +Red Riding Hood, she did--one day, she did-- +An' it 'uz _Sund'y_--'cause the little cloak +It 'uz too nice to wear ist _ever'_ day +An' _all_ the time!--An' so her Ma, she put +It on Red Riding Hood--an' telled her not +To dit no dirt on it ner dit it mussed +Ner nothin'! An'--an'--nen her Ma she dot +Her little basket out, 'at Old Kriss bringed +Her wunst--one time, he did. And nen she fill' +It full o' whole lots an' 'bundance o' good things t' eat +(Allus my Dran'ma _she_ says ''bundance,' too.) +An' so her Ma fill' little Red Riding Hood's +Nice basket all ist full o' dood things t' eat, +An' tell her take 'em to her old Dran'ma-- +An' not to _spill_ 'em, neever--'cause ef she +'Ud stump her toe an' spill 'em, her Dran'ma +She'll haf to _punish_ her! + + An' nen--An' so +Little Red Riding Hood she p'omised she +'Ud be all careful nen an' cross' her heart +'At she wont run an' spill 'em all fer six-- +Five--ten--two-hundred-bushel-dollars-gold! +An' nen she kiss her Ma doo'-bye an' went +A-skippin' off--away fur off frough the +Big woods, where her Dran'ma she live at.--No!-- +She didn't do _a-skippin'_, like I said:-- +She ist went _walkin'_--careful-like an' slow-- +Ist like a little lady--walkin' 'long +As all polite an' nice--an' slow--an' straight-- +An' turn her toes--ist like she's marchin' in +The Sund'y-School k-session! + + An'--an'--so +She 'uz a-doin' along--an' doin' along-- +On frough the drate big woods--'cause her Dran'ma +She live 'way, 'way fur off frough the big woods +From _her_ Ma's house. So when Red Riding Hood +She dit to do there, allus have most fun-- +When she do frough the drate big woods, you know.-- +'Cause she ain't feared a bit o' anything! +An' so she sees the little hoppty-birds +'At's in the trees, an' flyin' all around, +An' singin' dlad as ef their parunts said +They'll take 'em to the magic-lantern show! +An' she 'ud pull the purty flowers an' things +A-growin' round the stumps--An' she 'ud ketch +The purty butterflies, an' drasshoppers, +An' stick pins frough 'em--No!--I ist _said_ that!-- +'Cause she's too dood an' kind an' 'bedient +To _hurt_ things thataway.--She'd _ketch_ 'em, though, +An' ist _play_ wiv 'em ist a little while, +An' nen she'd let 'em fly away, she would, +An' ist skip on adin to her Dran'ma's. + +An' so, while she uz doin' 'long an' 'long, +First thing you know they 'uz a drate big old +Mean wicked Wolf jumped out 'at wanted t' eat +Her up, but _dassent_ to--'cause wite clos't there +They wuz a Man a-choppin' wood, an' you +Could _hear_ him.--So the old Wolf he 'uz _'feared_ +Only to ist be _kind_ to her.--So he +Ist 'tended like he wuz dood friends to her +An' says "Dood-morning, little Red Riding Hood!"-- +All ist as kind! + + An' nen Riding Hood +She say "Dood-morning," too--all kind an' nice-- +Ist like her Ma she learn'--No!--mustn't say +"Learn," cause "_Learn_" it's unproper.--So she say +It like her _Ma_ she "_teached_" her.--An'--so she +Ist says "Dood-morning" to the Wolf--'cause she +Don't know ut-tall 'at he's a _wicked_ Wolf +An' want to eat her up! + + Nen old Wolf smile +An' say, so kind: "Where air you doin' at?" +Nen little Red Riding Hood she says: "I'm doin' +To my Dran'ma's, 'cause my Ma say I might." +Nen, when she tell him that, the old Wolf he +Ist turn an' light out frough the big thick woods, +Where she can't see him any more. An so +She think he's went to _his_ house--but he haint,-- +He's went to her Dran'ma's, to be there first-- +An' _ketch_ her, ef she don't watch mighty sharp +What she's about! + + An' nen when the old Wolf +Dit to her Dran'ma's house, he's purty smart,-- +An' so he 'tend-like _he's_ Red Riding Hood, +An' knock at th' door. An' Riding Hood's Dran'ma +She's sick in bed an' can't come to the door +An' open it. So th' old Wolf knock _two_ times. +An' nen Red Riding Hood's Dran'ma she says +"Who's there?" she says. An' old Wolf 'tends-like he's +Little Red Riding Hood, you know, an' make' +His voice soun' ist like hers, an' says: "It's me, +Dran'ma--an' I'm Red Riding Hood an' I'm +Ist come to see you." + + Nen her old Dran'ma +She think it _is_ little Red Riding Hood, +An' so she say: "Well, come in nen an' make +You'se'f at home," she says, "'cause I'm down sick +In bed, and got the 'ralgia, so's I can't +Dit up an' let ye in." + + An' so th' old Wolf +Ist march' in nen an' shet the door adin, +An' _drowl_, he did, an' _splunge_ up on the bed +An' et up old Miz Riding Hood 'fore she +Could put her specs on an' see who it wuz.-- +An' so she never knowed _who_ et her up! + +An' nen the wicked Wolf he ist put on +Her nightcap, an' all covered up in bed-- +Like he wuz _her_, you know. + + Nen, purty soon +Here come along little Red Riding Hood, +An' _she_ knock' at the door. An' old Wolf 'tend +Like _he's_ her Dran'ma; an' he say, "Who's there?" +Ist like her Dran'ma say, you know. An' so +Little Red Riding Hood she say "It's _me_, +Dran'ma--an' I'm Red Riding Hood and I'm +Ist come to _see_ you." + + An' nen old Wolf nen +He cough an' say: "Well, come in nen an' make +You'se'f at home," he says, "'cause I'm down sick +In bed, an' got the 'ralgia, so's I can't +Dit up an' let ye in." + + An' so she think +It's her Dran'ma a-talkin'.--So she ist +Open' the door an' come in, an' set down +Her basket, an' taked off her things, an' bringed +A chair an' clumbed up on the bed, wite by +The old big Wolf she thinks is her Dran'ma.-- +Only she thinks the old Wolf's dot whole lots +More bigger ears, an' lots more whiskers, too, +Than her Dran'ma; an' so Red Riding Hood +She's kindo' skeered a little. So she says +"Oh, Dran'ma, what _big eyes_ you dot!" An' nen +The old Wolf says: "They're ist big thataway +'Cause I'm so dlad to see you!" + + Nen she says,-- +"Oh, Dran'ma, what a drate big nose you dot!" +Nen th' old Wolf says: "It's ist big thataway +Ist 'cause I smell the dood things 'at you bringed +Me in the basket!" + + An' nen Riding Hood +She say "Oh-me-oh-_my_! Dran'ma! what big +White long sharp teeth you dot!" + + Nen old Wolf says: +"Yes--an' they're thataway," he says--an' drowled-- +"They're thataway," he says, "to _eat_ you wiv!" +An' nen he ist _jump_' at her.-- + + But she _scream_'-- +An' _scream_', she did--So's 'at the Man +'At wuz a-choppin' wood, you know,--_he_ hear, +An' come a-runnin' in there wiv his ax; +An', 'fore the old Wolf know' what he's about, +He split his old brains out an' killed him s'quick +It make' his head swim!--An' Red Riding Hood +She wuzn't hurt at all! + + An' the big Man +He tooked her all safe home, he did, an' tell +Her Ma she's all right an' ain't hurt at all +An' old Wolf's dead an' killed--an' ever'thing!-- +So her Ma wuz so tickled an' so proud, +She divved _him_ all the dood things t' eat they wuz +'At's in the basket, an' she tell him 'at +She's much oblige', an' say to "call adin." +An' story's honest _truth_--an' all _so_, too! + + + + +LIMITATIONS OF GENIUS + +The audience entire seemed pleased--indeed +_Extremely_ pleased. And little Maymie, freed +From her task of instructing, ran to show +Her wondrous colored picture to and fro +Among the company. + + "And how comes it," said +Some one to Mr. Hammond, "that, instead +Of the inventor's life you did not choose +The _artist's?_--since the world can better lose +A cutting-box or reaper than it can +A noble picture painted by a man +Endowed with gifts this drawing would suggest"-- +Holding the picture up to show the rest. +"_There now!_" chimed in the wife, her pale face lit +Like winter snow with sunrise over it,-- +"That's what _I'm_ always asking him.--But _he_-- +_Well_, as he's answering _you_, he answers _me_,-- +With that same silent, suffocating smile +He's wearing now!" + + For quite a little while +No further speech from anyone, although +All looked at Mr. Hammond and that slow, +Immutable, mild smile of his. And then +The encouraged querist asked him yet again +_Why was it_, and etcetera--with all +The rest, expectant, waiting 'round the wall,-- +Until the gentle Mr. Hammond said +He'd answer with a "_parable_," instead-- +About "a dreamer" that he used to know-- +"An artist"--"master"--_all_--in _embryo_. + + + + +MR. HAMMOND'S PARABLE + +THE DREAMER + +I + +He was a Dreamer of the Days: + Indolent as a lazy breeze +Of midsummer, in idlest ways + Lolling about in the shade of trees. +The farmer turned--as he passed him by + Under the hillside where he kneeled +Plucking a flower--with scornful eye + And rode ahead in the harvest field +Muttering--"Lawz! ef that-air shirk + Of a boy was mine fer a week er so, +He'd quit _dreamin'_ and git to work + And _airn_ his livin'--er--Well! _I_ know!" +And even kindlier rumor said, +Tapping with finger a shaking head,-- +"Got such a curious kind o' way-- +Wouldn't surprise me much, I say!" + +Lying limp, with upturned gaze +Idly dreaming away his days. +No companions? Yes, a book +Sometimes under his arm he took +To read aloud to a lonesome brook. + And school-boys, truant, once had heard +A strange voice chanting, faint and dim-- +Followed the echoes, and found it him, + Perched in a tree-top like a bird, +Singing, clean from the highest limb; +And, fearful and awed, they all slipped by +To wonder in whispers if he could fly. +"Let him alone!" his father said + When the old schoolmaster came to say, +"He took no part in his books to-day-- +Only the lesson the readers read.-- + His mind seems sadly going astray!" +"Let him alone!" came the mournful tone, +And the father's grief in his sad eyes shone-- +Hiding his face in his trembling hand, +Moaning, "Would I could understand! +But as heaven wills it I accept +Uncomplainingly!" So he wept. + +Then went "The Dreamer" as he willed, +As uncontrolled as a light sail filled +Flutters about with an empty boat +Loosed from its moorings and afloat: +Drifted out from the busy quay +Of dull school-moorings listlessly; +Drifted off on the talking breeze, +All alone with his reveries; +Drifted on, as his fancies wrought-- +Out on the mighty gulfs of thought. + + +II + +The farmer came in the evening gray + And took the bars of the pasture down; +Called to the cows in a coaxing way, +"Bess" and "Lady" and "Spot" and "Brown," +While each gazed with a wide-eyed stare, +As though surprised at his coming there-- +Till another tone, in a higher key, +Brought their obeyance lothfully. + + Then, as he slowly turned and swung +The topmost bar to its proper rest, + Something fluttered along and clung +An instant, shivering at his breast-- + A wind-scared fragment of legal cap, +Which darted again, as he struck his hand + On his sounding chest with a sudden slap, +And hurried sailing across the land. +But as it clung he had caught the glance +Of a little penciled countenance, +And a glamour of written words; and hence, +A minute later, over the fence, +"Here and there and gone astray +Over the hills and far away," +He chased it into a thicket of trees +And took it away from the captious breeze. + +A scrap of paper with a rhyme +Scrawled upon it of summertime: +A pencil-sketch of a dairy-maid, +Under a farmhouse porch's shade, +Working merrily; and was blent +With her glad features such sweet content, +That a song she sung in the lines below +Seemed delightfully _apropos_:-- + +SONG + + "Why do I sing--Tra-la-la-la-la! + Glad as a King?--Tra-la-la-la-la! + Well, since you ask,-- + I have such a pleasant task, + I can not help but sing! + + "Why do I smile--Tra-la-la-la-la! + Working the while?--Tra-la-la-la-la! + Work like this is play,-- + So I'm playing all the day-- + I can not help but smile! + + "So, If you please--Tra-la-la-la-la! + Live at your ease!--Tra-la-la-la-la! + You've only got to turn, + And, you see, its bound to churn-- + I can not help but please!" + +The farmer pondered and scratched his head, + Reading over each mystic word.-- +"Some o' the Dreamer's work!" he said-- + "Ah, here's more--and name and date +In his hand-write'!"--And the good man read,-- +"'Patent applied for, July third, + Eighteen hundred and forty-eight'!" +The fragment fell from his nerveless grasp-- +His awed lips thrilled with the joyous gasp: + "I see the p'int to the whole concern,-- + He's studied out a patent churn!" + + + + +FLORETTY'S MUSICAL CONTRIBUTION + +All seemed delighted, though the elders more, +Of course, than were the children.--Thus, before +Much interchange of mirthful compliment, +The story-teller said _his_ stories "went" +(Like a bad candle) _best_ when they went _out_,-- +And that some sprightly music, dashed about, +Would _wholly_ quench his "glimmer," and inspire +Far brighter lights. + + And, answering this desire, +The flutist opened, in a rapturous strain +Of rippling notes--a perfect April-rain +Of melody that drenched the senses through;-- +Then--gentler--gentler--as the dusk sheds dew, +It fell, by velvety, staccatoed halts, +Swooning away in old "Von Weber's Waltz." +Then the young ladies sang "Isle of the Sea"-- +In ebb and flow and wave so billowy,-- +Only with quavering breath and folded eyes +The listeners heard, buoyed on the fall and rise +Of its insistent and exceeding stress +Of sweetness and ecstatic tenderness ... +With lifted finger _yet_, Remembrance--List!-- +"_Beautiful isle of the sea!_" wells in a mist +Of tremulous ... + + ... After much whispering +Among the children, Alex came to bring +Some kind of _letter_--as it seemed to be-- +To Cousin Rufus. This he carelessly +Unfolded--reading to himself alone,-- +But, since its contents became, later, known, +And no one "_plagued_ so _awful_ bad," the same +May here be given--of course without full name, +Fac-simile, or written kink or curl +Or clue. It read:-- + + "Wild Roved an indian Girl + Brite al Floretty" + deer freind + I now take +*this* These means to send that _Song_ to you & make +my Promus good to you in the Regards +Of doing What i Promust afterwards, +the _notes_ & _Words_ is both here _Printed_ SOS +you *kin* can git _uncle Mart_ to read you *them* those +& cousin Rufus you can git to _Play_ +the _notes_ fur you on eny Plezunt day +His Legul Work aint *Pressin* Pressing. + Ever thine + As shore as the Vine + doth the Stump intwine + thou art my Lump of Sackkerrine + Rinaldo Rinaldine + the Pirut in Captivity. + + ... There dropped +Another square scrap.--But the hand was stopped +That reached for it--Floretty suddenly +Had set a firm foot on her property-- +Thinking it was the _letter_, not the _song_,-- +But blushing to discover she was wrong, +When, with all gravity of face and air, +Her precious letter _handed_ to her there +By Cousin Rufus left her even more +In apprehension than she was before. +But, testing his unwavering, kindly eye, +She seemed to put her last suspicion by, +And, in exchange, handed the song to him.-- + +A page torn from a song-book: Small and dim +Both notes and words were--but as plain as day +They seemed to him, as he began to play-- +And plain to _all_ the singers,--as he ran +An airy, warbling prelude, then began +Singing and swinging in so blithe a strain, +That every voice rang in the old refrain: +From the beginning of the song, clean through, +Floretty's features were a study to +The flutist who "read _notes_" so readily, +Yet read so little of the mystery +Of that face of the girl's.--Indeed _one_ thing +Bewildered him quite into worrying, +And that was, noticing, throughout it all, +The Hired Man shrinking closer to the wall, +She ever backing toward him through the throng +Of barricading children--till the song +Was ended, and at last he saw her near +Enough to reach and take him by the ear +And pinch it just a pang's worth of her ire +And leave it burning like a coal of fire. +He noticed, too, in subtle pantomime +She seemed to dust him off, from time to time; +And when somebody, later, asked if she +Had never heard the song before--"What! _me?_" +She said--then blushed again and smiled,-- +"I've knowed that song sence _Adam_ was a child!-- +It's jes a joke o' this-here man's.--He's learned +To _read_ and _write_ a little, and its turned +His fool-head some--That's all!" + + And then some one +Of the loud-wrangling boys said--"_Course_ they's none +No more, _these_ days!--They's Fairies _ust_ to be, +But they're all dead, a hunderd years!" said he. + +"Well, there's where you're _mustakened_!"--in reply +They heard Bud's voice, pitched sharp and thin and high.-- + +"An' how you goin' to _prove_ it!" + + "Well, I _kin_!" +Said Bud, with emphasis,--"They's one lives in +Our garden--and I _see_ 'im wunst, wiv my +Own eyes--_one_ time I did." + + "_Oh, what a lie_!" +--"'_Sh!_'" + + "Well, nen," said the skeptic--seeing there +The older folks attracted--"Tell us _where_ +You saw him, an' all _'bout_ him!' + + "Yes, my son.-- +If you tell 'stories,' you may tell us one," +The smiling father said, while Uncle Mart, +Behind him, winked at Bud, and pulled apart +His nose and chin with comical grimace-- +Then sighed aloud, with sanctimonious face,-- + "'_How good and comely it is to see + Children and parents in friendship agree!_'-- +You fire away, Bud, on your Fairy-tale-- +Your _Uncle's_ here to back you!" + + Somewhat pale, +And breathless as to speech, the little man +Gathered himself. And thus his story ran. + + + + +BUD'S FAIRY-TALE + +Some peoples thinks they ain't no Fairies _now_ +No more yet!--But they _is_, I bet! 'Cause ef +They _wuzn't_ Fairies, nen I' like to know +Who'd w'ite 'bout Fairies in the books, an' tell +What Fairies _does_, an' how their _picture_ looks, +An' all an' ever'thing! W'y, ef they don't +Be Fairies anymore, nen little boys +'U'd ist _sleep_ when they go to sleep an' wont +Have ist no dweams at all,--'Cause Fairies--_good_ +Fairies--they're a-purpose to make dweams! +But they _is_ Fairies--an' I _know_ they is! +'Cause one time wunst, when its all Summertime, +An' don't haf to be no fires in the stove +Er fireplace to keep warm wiv--ner don't haf +To wear old scwatchy flannen shirts at all, +An' aint no fweeze--ner cold--ner snow!--An'--an' +Old skweeky twees got all the gween leaves on +An' ist keeps noddin', noddin' all the time, +Like they 'uz lazy an' a-twyin' to go +To sleep an' couldn't, 'cause the wind won't quit +A-blowin' in 'em, an' the birds won't stop +A-singin' so's they _kin_.--But twees _don't_ sleep, +I guess! But _little boys_ sleeps--an' _dweams_, too.-- +An' that's a sign they's Fairies. + + So, one time, +When I ben playin' "Store" wunst over in +The shed of their old stable, an' Ed Howard +He maked me quit a-bein' pardners, 'cause +I dwinked the 'tend-like sody-water up +An' et the shore-nuff cwackers.--W'y, nen I +Clumbed over in our garden where the gwapes +Wuz purt'-nigh ripe: An' I wuz ist a-layin' +There on th' old cwooked seat 'at Pa maked in +Our arber,--an' so I 'uz layin' there +A-whittlin' beets wiv my new dog-knife, an' +A-lookin' wite up through the twimbly leaves-- +An' wuzn't 'sleep at all!--An'-sir!--first thing +You know, a little _Fairy_ hopped out there! +A _leetle-teenty Fairy!--hope-may-die!_ +An' he look' down at me, he did--An' he +Ain't bigger'n a _yellerbird!_--an' he +Say "Howdy-do!" he did--an' I could _hear_ +Him--ist as _plain!_ + + Nen _I_ say "Howdy-do!" +An' he say "_I'm_ all hunkey, Nibsey; how +Is _your_ folks comin' on?" + + An' nen I say +"My name ain't '_Nibsey_,' neever--my name's _Bud_. +An' what's _your_ name?" I says to him. + + An'he +Ist laugh an' say "'_Bud's_' awful _funny_ name!" +An' he ist laid back on a big bunch o' gwapes +An' laugh' an' laugh', he did--like somebody +'Uz tick-el-un his feet! + + An' nen I say-- +"What's _your_ name," nen I say, "afore you bust +Yo'-se'f a-laughin' 'bout _my_ name?" I says. +An' nen he dwy up laughin'--kindo' mad-- +An' say "W'y, _my_ name's _Squidjicum_," he says. +An' nen _I_ laugh an' say--"_Gee!_ what a name!" +An' when I make fun of his name, like that, +He ist git awful mad an' spunky, an' +'Fore you know, he ist gwabbed holt of a vine-- +A big long vine 'at's danglin' up there, an' +He ist helt on wite tight to that, an' down +He swung quick past my face, he did, an' ist +Kicked at me hard's he could! + + But I'm too quick +Fer _Mr. Squidjicum!_ I ist weached out +An' ketched him, in my hand--an' helt him, too, +An' _squeezed_ him, ist like little wobins when +They can't fly yet an' git flopped out their nest. +An' nen I turn him all wound over, an' +Look at him clos't, you know--wite clos't,--'cause ef +He _is_ a Fairy, w'y, I want to see +The _wings_ he's got--But he's dwessed up so fine +'At I can't _see_ no wings.--An' all the time +He's twyin' to kick me yet: An' so I take +F'esh holts an' _squeeze_ agin--an' harder, too; +An' I says, "_Hold up, Mr. Squidjicum!_-- +You're kickin' the w'ong man!" I says; an' nen +I ist _squeeze' him_, purt'-nigh my _best_, I did-- +An' I heerd somepin' bust!--An' nen he cwied +An' says, "You better look out what you're doin'!-- +You' bust' my spiderweb-suspen'ners, an' +You' got my woseleaf-coat all cwinkled up +So's I can't go to old Miss Hoodjicum's +Tea-party, 's'afternoon!" + + An' nen I says-- +"Who's 'old Miss Hoodjicum'?" I says + + An'he +Says "Ef you lemme loose I'll tell you." + + So +I helt the little skeezics 'way fur out +In one hand--so's he can't jump down t' th' ground +Wivout a-gittin' all stove up: an' nen +I says, "You're loose now.--Go ahead an' tell +'Bout the 'tea-party' where you're goin' at +So awful fast!" I says. + + An' nen he say,-- +"No use to _tell_ you 'bout it, 'cause you won't +Believe it, 'less you go there your own se'f +An' see it wiv your own two eyes!" he says. +An' _he_ says: "Ef you lemme _shore-nuff_ loose, +An' p'omise 'at you'll keep wite still, an' won't +Tetch nothin' 'at you see--an' never tell +Nobody in the world--an' lemme loose-- +W'y, nen I'll _take_ you there!" + + But I says, "Yes +An' ef I let you loose, you'll _run!_" I says. +An' he says "No, I won't!--I hope may die!" +Nen I says, "Cwoss your heart you won't!" + + An'he +Ist cwoss his heart; an' nen I weach an' set +The little feller up on a long vine-- +An' he 'uz so tickled to git loose agin, +He gwab' the vine wiv boff his little hands +An' ist take an' turn in, he did, an' skin +'Bout forty-'leven cats! + + Nen when he git +Through whirlin' wound the vine, an' set on top +Of it agin, w'y nen his "woseleaf-coat" +He bwag so much about, it's ist all tored +Up, an' ist hangin' strips an' rags--so he +Look like his Pa's a dwunkard. An' so nen +When he see what he's done--a-actin' up +So smart,--he's awful mad, I guess; an' ist +Pout out his lips an' twis' his little face +Ist ugly as he kin, an' set an' tear +His whole coat off--an' sleeves an' all.--An' nen +He wad it all togevver an' ist _throw_ +It at me ist as hard as he kin dwive! + +An' when I weach to ketch him, an' 'uz goin' +To give him 'nuvver squeezin', _he ist flewed +Clean up on top the arber!_--'Cause, you know, +They _wuz_ wings on him--when he tored his _coat_ +Clean off--they _wuz_ wings _under there_. But they +Wuz purty wobbly-like an' wouldn't work +Hardly at all--'Cause purty soon, when I +Throwed clods at him, an' sticks, an' got him shooed +Down off o' there, he come a-floppin' down +An' lit k-bang! on our old chicken-coop, +An' ist laid there a-whimper'n' like a child! +An' I tiptoed up wite clos't, an' I says "What's +The matter wiv ye, Squidjicum?" + + An'he +Says: "Dog-gone! when my wings gits stwaight agin, +Where you all _cwumpled_ 'em," he says, "I bet +I'll ist fly clean away an' won't take you +To old Miss Hoodjicum's at all!" he says. +An' nen I ist weach out wite quick, I did, +An' gwab the sassy little snipe agin-- +Nen tooked my topstwing an' tie down his wings +So's he _can't_ fly, 'less'n I want him to! +An' nen I says: "Now, Mr. Squidjicum, +You better ist light out," I says, "to old +Miss Hoodjicum's, an' show _me_ how to git +There, too," I says; "er ef you don't," I says, +"I'll climb up wiv you on our buggy-shed +An' push you off!" I says. + + An nen he say +All wight, he'll show me there; an' tell me nen +To set him down wite easy on his feet, +An' loosen up the stwing a little where +It cut him under th' arms. An' nen he says, +"Come on!" he says; an' went a-limpin' 'long +The garden-path--an' limpin' 'long an' 'long +Tel--purty soon he come on 'long to where's +A grea'-big cabbage-leaf. An' he stoop down +An' say "Come on inunder here wiv me!" +So _I_ stoop down an' crawl inunder there, +Like he say. + + An' inunder there's a grea' +Big clod, they is--a awful grea' big clod! +An' nen he says, "_Roll this-here clod away!_" +An' so I roll' the clod away. An' nen +It's all wet, where the dew'z inunder where +The old clod wuz,--an' nen the Fairy he +Git on the wet-place: Nen he say to me +"Git on the wet-place, too!" An' nen he say, +"Now hold yer breff an' shet yer eyes!" he says, +"Tel I say _Squinchy-winchy!_" Nen he say-- +Somepin _in Dutch_, I guess.--An' nen I felt +Like we 'uz sinkin' down--an' sinkin' down!-- +Tel purty soon the little Fairy weach +An' pinch my nose an' yell at me an' say, +"_Squinchy-winchy! Look wherever you please!_" +Nen when I looked--Oh! they 'uz purtyest place +Down there you ever saw in all the World!-- +They 'uz ist _flowers_ an' _woses_--yes, an' _twees_ +Wiv _blossoms_ on an' _big ripe apples_ boff! +An' butterflies, they wuz--an' hummin'-birds-- +An' _yellow_birds an' _blue_birds--yes, an' _red!_-- +An' ever'wheres an' all awound 'uz vines +Wiv ripe p'serve-pears on 'em!--Yes, an' all +An' ever'thing 'at's ever gwowin' in +A garden--er canned up--all ripe at wunst!-- +It wuz ist like a garden--only it +'Uz _little_ tit o' garden--'bout big wound +As ist our twun'el-bed is.--An' all wound +An' wound the little garden's a gold fence-- +An' little gold gate, too--an' ash-hopper +'At's all gold, too--an' ist full o' gold ashes! +An' wite in th' middle o' the garden wuz +A little gold house, 'at's ist 'bout as big +As ist a bird-cage is: An' _in_ the house +They 'uz whole-lots _more_ Fairies there--'cause I +Picked up the little house, an 'peeked in at +The winders, an' I see 'em all in there +Ist _buggin_' wound! An' Mr. Squidjicum +He twy to make me quit, but I gwab _him_, +An' poke him down the chimbly, too, I did!-- +An' y'ort to see _him_ hop out 'mongst 'em there! +Ist like he 'uz the boss an' ist got back!-- +_"Hain't ye got on them-air dew-dumplin's yet?"_ +He says. + + An' they says no. + + An' nen he says +"_Better git at 'em nen!_" he says, "_wite quick-- +'Cause old Miss Hoodjicum's a-comin'!_" + + Nen +They all set wound a little gold tub--an' +All 'menced a-peelin' dewdwops, ist like they +'Uz _peaches_.--An', it looked so funny, I +Ist laugh' out loud, an' _dwopped_ the little house,-- +An' 't busted like a soap-bubble!--An't skeered +Me so, I--I--I--I,--it skeered me so, +I--ist _waked_ up.--No! I _ain't_ ben _asleep_ +An' _dream_ it all, like _you_ think,--but it's shore +Fer-certain _fact_ an' cwoss my heart it is! + + + + +A DELICIOUS INTERRUPTION + +All were quite gracious in their plaudits of +Bud's Fairy; but another stir above +That murmur was occasioned by a sweet +Young lady-caller, from a neighboring street, +Who rose reluctantly to say good-night +To all the pleasant friends and the delight +Experienced,--as she had promised sure +To be back home by nine. Then paused, demure, +And wondered was it _very_ dark.--Oh, _no!_-- +She had _come_ by herself and she could go +Without an _escort_. Ah, you sweet girls all! +What young gallant but comes at such a call, +Your most abject of slaves! Why, there were three +Young men, and several men of family, +Contesting for the honor--which at last +Was given to Cousin Rufus; and he cast +A kingly look behind him, as the pair +Vanished with laughter in the darkness there. + +As order was restored, with everything +Suggestive, in its way, of "romancing," +Some one observed that _now_ would be the chance +For _Noey_ to relate a circumstance +That _he_--the very specious rumor went-- +Had been eye-witness of, by accident. +Noey turned pippin-crimson; then turned pale +As death; then turned to flee, without avail.-- +"_There!_ head him off! _Now!_ hold him in his chair!-- +Tell us the Serenade-tale, now, Noey.--_There!_" + + + + +NOEY'S NIGHT-PIECE + +"They ain't much 'tale' about it!" Noey said.-- +"K'tawby grapes wuz gittin' good-n-red +I rickollect; and Tubb Kingry and me +'Ud kindo' browse round town, daytime, to see +What neighbers 'peared to have the most to spare +'At wuz git-at-able and no dog there +When we come round to git 'em, say 'bout ten +O'clock at night when mostly old folks then +Wuz snorin' at each other like they yit +Helt some old grudge 'at never slep' a bit. +Well, at the _Pars'nige_--ef ye'll call to mind,-- +They's 'bout the biggest grape-arber you'll find +'Most anywheres.--And mostly there, we knowed +They wuz _k'tawbies_ thick as ever growed-- +And more'n they'd _p'serve_.--Besides I've heerd +Ma say k'tawby-grape-p'serves jes 'peared +A waste o' sugar, anyhow!--And so +My conscience stayed outside and lem me go +With Tubb, one night, the back-way, clean up through +That long black arber to the end next to +The house, where the k'tawbies, don't you know, +Wuz thickest. And t'uz lucky we went _slow_,-- +Fer jest as we wuz cropin' tords the gray- +End, like, of the old arber--heerd Tubb say +In a skeered whisper, 'Hold up! They's some one +Jes slippin' in here!--and _looks like a gun_ +He's carryin'!' I _golly!_ we both spread +Out flat aginst the ground! + + "'What's that?' Tubb said.-- +And jest then--'_plink! plunk! plink!_' we heerd something +Under the back-porch-winder.--Then, i jing! +Of course we rickollected 'bout the young +School-mam 'at wuz a-boardin' there, and sung, +And played on the melodium in the choir.-- +And she 'uz 'bout as purty to admire +As any girl in town!--the fac's is, she +Jest _wuz_, them times, to a dead certainty, +The belle o' this-here bailywick!--But--Well,-- +I'd best git back to what I'm tryin' to tell:-- +It wuz some feller come to serenade +Miss Wetherell: And there he plunked and played +His old guitar, and sung, and kep' his eye +Set on her winder, blacker'n the sky!-- +And black it _stayed_.--But mayby she wuz 'way +From home, er wore out--bein' _Saturday!_ + +"It _seemed_ a good-'eal _longer_, but I _know_ +He sung and plunked there half a' hour er so +Afore, it 'peared like, he could ever git +His own free qualified consents to quit +And go off 'bout his business. When he went +I bet you could a-bought him fer a cent! + +"And now, behold ye all!--as Tubb and me +Wuz 'bout to raise up,--right in front we see +A feller slippin' out the arber, square +Smack under that-air little winder where +The _other_ feller had been standin'.--And +The thing he wuz a-carryin' in his hand +Wuzn't no _gun_ at all!--It wuz a _flute_,-- +And _whoop-ee!_ how it did git up and toot +And chirp and warble, tel a mockin'-bird +'Ud dast to never let hisse'f be heerd +Ferever, after sich miracalous, high +Jim-cracks and grand skyrootics played there by +Yer Cousin Rufus!--Yes-sir; it wuz him!-- +And what's more,--all a-suddent that-air dim +Dark winder o' Miss Wetherell's wuz lit +Up like a' oyshture-sign, and under it +We see him sort o' wet his lips and smile +Down 'long his row o' dancin' fingers, while +He kindo' stiffened up and kinked his breath +And everlastin'ly jest blowed the peth +Out o' that-air old one-keyed flute o' his. +And, bless their hearts, that's all the 'tale' they is!" + +And even as Noey closed, all radiantly +The unconscious hero of the history, +Returning, met a perfect driving storm +Of welcome--a reception strangely warm +And _unaccountable_, to _him_, although +Most _gratifying_,--and he told them so. +"I only urge," he said, "my right to be +Enlightened." And a voice said: "_Certainly:_-- +During your absence we agreed that you +Should tell us all a story, old or new, +Just in the immediate happy frame of mind +We knew you would return in." + + So, resigned, +The ready flutist tossed his hat aside-- +Glanced at the children, smiled, and thus complied. + + + + +COUSIN RUFUS' STORY + +My little story, Cousin Rufus said, +Is not so much a story as a fact. +It is about a certain willful boy-- +An aggrieved, unappreciated boy, +Grown to dislike his own home very much, +By reason of his parents being not +At all up to his rigid standard and +Requirements and exactions as a son +And disciplinarian. + + So, sullenly +He brooded over his disheartening +Environments and limitations, till, +At last, well knowing that the outside world +Would yield him favors never found at home, +He rose determinedly one July dawn-- +Even before the call for breakfast--and, +Climbing the alley-fence, and bitterly +Shaking his clenched fist at the woodpile, he +Evanished down the turnpike.--Yes: he had, +Once and for all, put into execution +His long low-muttered threatenings--He had +_Run off!_--He had--had run away from home! + +His parents, at discovery of his flight, +Bore up first-rate--especially his Pa,-- +Quite possibly recalling his own youth, +And therefrom predicating, by high noon, +The absent one was very probably +Disporting his nude self in the delights +Of the old swimmin'-hole, some hundred yards +Below the slaughter-house, just east of town. +The stoic father, too, in his surmise +Was accurate--For, lo! the boy was there! + +And there, too, he remained throughout the day-- +Save at one starving interval in which +He clad his sunburnt shoulders long enough +To shy across a wheatfield, shadow-like, +And raid a neighboring orchard--bitterly, +And with spasmodic twitchings of the lip, +Bethinking him how all the other boys +Had _homes_ to go to at the dinner-hour-- +While _he_--alas!--_he had no home!_--At least +These very words seemed rising mockingly, +Until his every thought smacked raw and sour +And green and bitter as the apples he +In vain essayed to stay his hunger with. +Nor did he join the glad shouts when the boys +Returned rejuvenated for the long +Wet revel of the feverish afternoon.-- +Yet, bravely, as his comrades splashed and swam +And spluttered, in their weltering merriment, +He tried to laugh, too,--but his voice was hoarse +And sounded to him like some other boy's. +And then he felt a sudden, poking sort +Of sickness at the heart, as though some cold +And scaly pain were blindly nosing it +Down in the dreggy darkness of his breast. +The tensioned pucker of his purple lips +Grew ever chillier and yet more tense-- +The central hurt of it slow spreading till +It did possess the little face entire. +And then there grew to be a knuckled knot-- +An aching kind of core within his throat-- +An ache, all dry and swallowless, which seemed +To ache on just as bad when he'd pretend +He didn't notice it as when he did. +It was a kind of a conceited pain-- +An overbearing, self-assertive and +Barbaric sort of pain that clean outhurt +A boy's capacity for suffering-- +So, many times, the little martyr needs +Must turn himself all suddenly and dive +From sight of his hilarious playmates and +Surreptitiously weep under water. + + Thus +He wrestled with his awful agony +Till almost dark; and then, at last--then, with +The very latest lingering group of his +Companions, he moved turgidly toward home-- +Nay, rather _oozed_ that way, so slow he went,-- +With lothful, hesitating, loitering, +Reluctant, late-election-returns air, +Heightened somewhat by the conscience-made resolve +Of chopping a double-armful of wood +As he went in by rear way of the kitchen. +And this resolve he executed;--yet +The hired girl made no comment whatsoever, +But went on washing up the supper-things, +Crooning the unutterably sad song, "_Then think, +Oh, think how lonely this heart must ever be!_" +Still, with affected carelessness, the boy +Ranged through the pantry; but the cupboard-door +Was locked. He sighed then like a wet fore-stick +And went out on the porch.--At least the pump, +He prophesied, would meet him kindly and +Shake hands with him and welcome his return! +And long he held the old tin dipper up-- +And oh, how fresh and pure and sweet the draught! +Over the upturned brim, with grateful eyes +He saw the back-yard, in the gathering night, +Vague, dim and lonesome, but it all looked good: +The lightning-bugs, against the grape-vines, blinked +A sort of sallow gladness over his +Home-coming, with this softening of the heart. +He did not leave the dipper carelessly +In the milk-trough.--No: he hung it back upon +Its old nail thoughtfully--even tenderly. +All slowly then he turned and sauntered toward +The rain-barrel at the corner of the house, +And, pausing, peered into it at the few +Faint stars reflected there. Then--moved by some +Strange impulse new to him--he washed his feet. +He then went in the house--straight on into +The very room where sat his parents by +The evening lamp.--The father all intent +Reading his paper, and the mother quite +As intent with her sewing. Neither looked +Up at his entrance--even reproachfully,-- +And neither spoke. + + The wistful runaway +Drew a long, quavering breath, and then sat down +Upon the extreme edge of a chair. And all +Was very still there for a long, long while.-- +Yet everything, someway, seemed _restful_-like +And _homey_ and old-fashioned, good and kind, +And sort of _kin_ to him!--Only too _still!_ +If somebody would say something--just _speak_-- +Or even rise up suddenly and come +And lift him by the ear sheer off his chair-- +Or box his jaws--Lord bless 'em!--_any_thing!-- +Was he not there to thankfully accept +Any reception from parental source +Save this incomprehensible _voicelessness_. +O but the silence held its very breath! +If but the ticking clock would only _strike_ +And for an instant drown the whispering, +Lisping, sifting sound the katydids +Made outside in the grassy nowhere. + + Far +Down some back-street he heard the faint halloo +Of boys at their night-game of "Town-fox," +But now with no desire at all to be +Participating in their sport--No; no;-- +Never again in this world would he want +To join them there!--he only wanted just +To stay in home of nights--Always--always-- +Forever and a day! + + He moved; and coughed-- +Coughed hoarsely, too, through his rolled tongue; and yet +No vaguest of parental notice or +Solicitude in answer--no response-- +No word--no look. O it was deathly still!-- +So still it was that really he could not +Remember any prior silence that +At all approached it in profundity +And depth and density of utter hush. +He felt that he himself must break it: So, +Summoning every subtle artifice +Of seeming nonchalance and native ease +And naturalness of utterance to his aid, +And gazing raptly at the house-cat where +She lay curled in her wonted corner of +The hearth-rug, dozing, he spoke airily +And said: "I see you've got the same old cat!" + + + + +BEWILDERING EMOTIONS + +The merriment that followed was subdued-- +As though the story-teller's attitude +Were dual, in a sense, appealing quite +As much to sorrow as to mere delight, +According, haply, to the listener's bent +Either of sad or merry temperament.-- +"And of your two appeals I much prefer +The pathos," said "The Noted Traveler,"-- +"For should I live to twice my present years, +I know I could not quite forget the tears +That child-eyes bleed, the little palms nailed wide, +And quivering soul and body crucified.... +But, bless 'em! there are no such children here +To-night, thank God!--Come here to me, my dear!" +He said to little Alex, in a tone +So winning that the sound of it alone +Had drawn a child more lothful to his knee:-- +"And, now-sir, _I'll_ agree if _you'll_ agree,-- +_You_ tell us all a story, and then _I_ +Will tell one." + + "_But I can't._" + + "Well, can't you _try?_" +"Yes, Mister: he _kin_ tell _one_. Alex, tell +The one, you know, 'at you made up so well, +About the _Bear_. He allus tells that one," +Said Bud,--"He gits it mixed some 'bout the _gun_ +An' _ax_ the Little Boy had, an' _apples_, too."-- +Then Uncle Mart said--"There, now! that'll do!-- +Let _Alex_ tell his story his own way!" +And Alex, prompted thus, without delay +Began. + + + + +THE BEAR-STORY + +THAT ALEX "IST MAKED UP HIS-OWN-SE'F" + +W'y, wunst they wuz a Little Boy went out +In the woods to shoot a Bear. So, he went out +'Way in the grea'-big woods--he did.--An' he +Wuz goin'along--an'goin'along, you know, +An' purty soon he heerd somepin' go "_Wooh!_"-- +Ist thataway--"_Woo-ooh!_" An' he wuz _skeered_, +He wuz. An' so he runned an' clumbed a tree-- +A grea'-big tree, he did,--a sicka-_more_ tree. +An' nen he heerd it agin: an' he looked round, +An' _'t'uz a Bear!--a grea'-big, shore-nuff Bear!_-- +No: 't'uz _two_ Bears, it wuz--two grea'-big Bears-- +_One_ of 'em wuz--ist _one's a grea'-big_ Bear.-- +But they ist _boff_ went "_Wooh!_ "--An' here _they_ come +To climb the tree an' git the Little Boy +An'eat him up! + + An' nen the Little Boy +He 'uz skeered worse'n ever! An' here come +The grea'-big Bear a-climbin' th' tree to git +The Little Boy an' eat him up--Oh, _no!_-- +It 'uzn't the _Big_ Bear 'at clumb the tree-- +It 'uz the _Little_ Bear. So here _he_ come +Climbin' the tree--an' climbin' the tree! Nen when +He git wite _clos't_ to the Little Boy, w'y nen +The Little Boy he ist pulled up his gun +An' _shot_ the Bear, he did, an' killed him dead! +An' nen the Bear he falled clean on down out +The tree--away clean to the ground, he did +_Spling-splung!_ he falled _plum_ down, an' killed him, too! +An' lit wite side o' where the' _Big_ Bear's at. + +An' nen the Big Bear's awful mad, you bet!-- +'Cause--'cause the Little Boy he shot his gun +An' killed the _Little_ Bear.--'Cause the _Big_ Bear +He--he 'uz the Little Bear's Papa.--An' so here +_He_ come to climb the big old tree an' git +The Little Boy an' eat him up! An' when +The Little Boy he saw the _grea'-big Bear_ +A-comin', he 'uz badder skeered, he wuz, +Than _any_ time! An' so he think he'll climb +Up _higher_--'way up higher in the tree +Than the old _Bear_ kin climb, you know.--But he-- +He _can't_ climb higher 'an old _Bears_ kin climb,-- +'Cause Bears kin climb up higher in the trees +Than any little Boys In all the Wo-r-r-ld! + +An' so here come the grea'-big Bear, he did,-- +A-climbin' up--an' up the tree, to git +The Little Boy an' eat him up! An' so +The Little Boy he clumbed on higher, an' higher. +An' higher up the tree--an' higher--an' higher-- +An' higher'n iss-here _house_ is!--An' here come +Th' old Bear--clos'ter to him all the time!-- +An' nen--first thing you know,--when th' old Big Bear +Wuz wite clos't to him--nen the Little Boy +Ist jabbed his gun wite in the old Bear's mouf +An' shot an' killed him dead!--No; I _fergot_,-- +He didn't shoot the grea'-big Bear at all-- +'Cause _they 'uz no load in the gun_, you know-- +'Cause when he shot the _Little_ Bear, w'y, nen +No load 'uz anymore nen _in_ the gun! + +But th' Little Boy clumbed _higher_ up, he did-- +He clumbed _lots_ higher--an' on up _higher_--an' higher +An' _higher_--tel he ist _can't_ climb no higher, +'Cause nen the limbs 'uz all so little, 'way +Up in the teeny-weeny tip-top of +The tree, they'd break down wiv him ef he don't +Be keerful! So he stop an' think: An' nen +He look around--An' here come th' old Bear! +An' so the Little Boy make up his mind +He's got to ist git out o' there _some_ way!-- +'Cause here come the old Bear!--so clos't, his bref's +Purt 'nigh so's he kin feel how hot it is +Aginst his bare feet--ist like old "Ring's" bref +When he's ben out a-huntin' an's all tired. +So when th' old Bear's so clos't--the Little Boy +Ist gives a grea'-big jump fer '_nother_ tree-- +No!--no he don't do that!--I tell you what +The Little Boy does:--W'y, nen--w'y, he--Oh, _yes_-- +The Little Boy _he finds a hole up there +'At's in the tree_--an' climbs in there an' _hides_-- +An' _nen_ the old Bear can't find the Little Boy +Ut-tall!--But, purty soon th' old Bear finds +The Little Boy's _gun_ 'at's up there--'cause the _gun_ +It's too _tall_ to tooked wiv him in the hole. +So, when the old Bear find' the _gun_, he knows +The Little Boy ist _hid_ 'round _somers_ there,-- +An' th' old Bear 'gins to snuff an' sniff around, +An' sniff an' snuff around--so's he kin find +Out where the Little Boy's hid at.--An' nen--nen-- +Oh, _yes!_--W'y, purty soon the old Bear climbs +'Way out on a big limb--a grea'-long limb,-- +An' nen the Little Boy climbs out the hole +An' takes his ax an' chops the limb off!... Nen +The old Bear falls _k-splunge!_ clean to the ground +An' bust an' kill hisse'f plum dead, he did! + +An' nen the Little Boy he git his gun +An' 'menced a-climbin' down the tree agin-- +No!--no, he _didn't_ git his _gun_--'cause when +The _Bear_ falled, nen the _gun_ falled, too--An' broked +It all to pieces, too!--An' _nicest_ gun!-- +His Pa ist buyed it!--An' the Little Boy +Ist cried, he did; an' went on climbin' down +The tree--an' climbin' down--an' climbin' down!-- +_An'-sir!_ when he 'uz purt'-nigh down,--w'y, nen +_The old Bear he jumped up agin!_--an he +Ain't dead ut-tall--_ist_ 'tendin' thataway, +So he kin git the Little Boy an' eat +Him up! But the Little Boy he 'uz too smart +To climb clean _down_ the tree.--An' the old Bear +He can't climb _up_ the tree no more--'cause when +He fell, he broke one of his--He broke _all_ +His legs!--an' nen he _couldn't_ climb! But he +Ist won't go 'way an' let the Little Boy +Come down out of the tree. An' the old Bear +Ist growls 'round there, he does--ist growls an' goes +"_Wooh! woo-ooh!_" all the time! An' Little Boy +He haf to stay up in the tree--all night-- +An' 'thout no _supper_ neever!--Only they +Wuz _apples_ on the tree!--An' Little Boy +Et apples--ist all night--an' cried--an' cried! +Nen when 'tuz morning th' old Bear went "_Wooh!_" +Agin, an' try to climb up in the tree +An' git the Little Boy.--But he _can't_ +Climb t'save his _soul_, he can't!--An' _oh!_ he's _mad!_-- +He ist tear up the ground! an' go "_Woo-ooh!_" +An'--_Oh,yes!_--purty soon, when morning's come +All _light_--so's you kin _see_, you know,--w'y, nen +The old Bear finds the Little Boy's _gun_, you know, +'At's on the ground.--(An' it ain't broke ut-tall-- +I ist _said_ that!) An' so the old Bear think +He'll take the gun an' _shoot_ the Little Boy:-- +But _Bears they_ don't know much 'bout shootin' guns: +So when he go to shoot the Little Boy, +The old Bear got the _other_ end the gun +Agin his shoulder, 'stid o' _th'other_ end-- +So when he try to shoot the Little Boy, +It shot _the Bear_, it did--an' killed him dead! +An' nen the Little Boy dumb down the tree +An' chopped his old wooly head off:--Yes, an' killed +The _other_ Bear agin, he did--an' killed +All _boff_ the bears, he did--an' tuk 'em home +An' _cooked_ 'em, too, an' _et_ 'em! + + --An' that's + + + + +THE PATHOS OF APPLAUSE + +The greeting of the company throughout +Was like a jubilee,--the children's shout +And fusillading hand-claps, with great guns +And detonations of the older ones, +Raged to such tumult of tempestuous joy, +It even more alarmed than pleased the boy; +Till, with a sudden twitching lip, he slid +Down to the floor and dodged across and hid +His face against his mother as she raised +Him to the shelter of her heart, and praised +His story in low whisperings, and smoothed +The "amber-colored hair," and kissed, and soothed +And lulled him back to sweet tranquillity-- +"And 'ats a sign 'at you're the Ma fer me!" +He lisped, with gurgling ecstasy, and drew +Her closer, with shut eyes; and feeling, too, +If he could only _purr_ now like a cat, +He would undoubtedly be doing that! + +"And now"--the serious host said, lifting there +A hand entreating silence;--"now, aware +Of the good promise of our Traveler guest +To add some story with and for the rest, +I think I favor you, and him as well, +Asking a story I have heard him tell, +And know its truth,in each minute detail:" +Then leaning on his guest's chair, with a hale +Hand-pat by way of full indorsement, he +Said, "Yes--the Free-Slave story--certainly." + +The old man, with his waddy notebook out, +And glittering spectacles, glanced round about +The expectant circle, and still firmer drew +His hat on, with a nervous cough or two: +And, save at times the big hard words, and tone +Of gathering passion--all the speaker's own,-- +The tale that set each childish heart astir +Was thus told by "The Noted Traveler." + + + + +TOLD BY "THE NOTED TRAVELER" + +Coming, clean from the Maryland-end +Of this great National Road of ours, +Through your vast West; with the time to spend, +Stopping for days in the main towns, where +Every citizen seemed a friend, +And friends grew thick as the wayside flowers,-- +I found no thing that I might narrate +More singularly strange or queer +Than a thing I found in your sister-state +Ohio,--at a river-town--down here +In my notebook: _Zanesville--situate +On the stream Muskingum--broad and clear, +And navigable, through half the year, +North, to Coshocton; south, as far +As Marietta._--But these facts are +Not of the _story_, but the _scene_ +Of the simple little tale I mean +To tell _directly_--from this, straight through +To the _end_ that is best worth listening to: + +Eastward of Zanesville, two or three +Miles from the town, as our stage drove in, +I on the driver's seat, and he +Pointing out this and that to me,-- +On beyond us--among the rest-- +A grovey slope, and a fluttering throng +Of little children, which he "guessed" +Was a picnic, as we caught their thin +High laughter, as we drove along, +Clearer and clearer. Then suddenly +He turned and asked, with a curious grin, +What were my views on _Slavery? "Why?"_ +I asked, in return, with a wary eye. +"Because," he answered, pointing his whip +At a little, whitewashed house and shed +On the edge of the road by the grove ahead,-- +"Because there are two slaves _there_," he said-- +"Two Black slaves that I've passed each trip +For eighteen years.--Though they've been set free, +They have been slaves ever since!" said he. +And, as our horses slowly drew +Nearer the little house in view, +All briefly I heard the history +Of this little old Negro woman and +Her husband, house and scrap of land; +How they were slaves and had been made free +By their dying master, years ago +In old Virginia; and then had come +North here into a _free_ state--so, +Safe forever, to found a home-- +For themselves alone?--for they left South there +Five strong sons, who had, alas! +All been sold ere it came to pass +This first old master with his last breath +Had freed the _parents_.--(He went to death +Agonized and in dire despair +That the poor slave _children_ might not share +Their parents' freedom. And wildly then +He moaned for pardon and died. Amen!) + +Thus, with their freedom, and little sum +Of money left them, these two had come +North, full twenty long years ago; +And, settling there, they had hopefully +Gone to work, in their simple way, +Hauling--gardening--raising sweet +Corn, and popcorn.--Bird and bee +In the garden-blooms and the apple-tree +Singing with them throughout the slow +Summer's day, with its dust and heat-- +The crops that thirst and the rains that fail; +Or in Autumn chill, when the clouds hung low, +And hand-made hominy might find sale +In the near town-market; or baking pies +And cakes, to range in alluring show +At the little window, where the eyes +Of the Movers' children, driving past, +Grew fixed, till the big white wagons drew +Into a halt that would sometimes last +Even the space of an hour or two-- +As the dusty, thirsty travelers made +Their noonings there in the beeches' shade +By the old black Aunty's spring-house, where, +Along with its cooling draughts, were found +Jugs of her famous sweet spruce-beer, +Served with her gingerbread-horses there, +While Aunty's snow-white cap bobbed 'round +Till the children's rapture knew no bound, +As she sang and danced for them, quavering clear +And high the chant of her old slave-days-- + + "Oh, Lo'd, Jinny! my toes is so', + Dancin' on yo' sandy flo'!" + +Even so had they wrought all ways +To earn the pennies, and hoard them, too,-- +And with what ultimate end in view?-- +They were saving up money enough to be +Able, in time, to buy their own +Five children back. + + Ah! the toil gone through! +And the long delays and the heartaches, too, +And self-denials that they had known! +But the pride and glory that was theirs +When they first hitched up their shackly cart +For the long, long journey South.--The start +In the first drear light of the chilly dawn, +With no friends gathered in grieving throng,-- +With no farewells and favoring prayers; +But, as they creaked and jolted on, +Their chiming voices broke in song-- + + "'Hail, all hail! don't you see the stars a-fallin'? + Hail, all hail! I'm on my way. + Gideon[1] am + A healin' ba'm-- + I belong to the blood-washed army. + Gideon am + A healin' ba'm-- + On my way!'" + +And their _return!_--with their oldest boy +Along with them! Why, their happiness +Spread abroad till it grew a joy +_Universal_--It even reached +And thrilled the town till the _Church_ was stirred +Into suspecting that wrong was wrong!-- +And it stayed awake as the preacher preached +A _Real_ "Love"-text that he had not long +To ransack for in the Holy Word. + +And the son, restored, and welcomed so, +Found service readily in the town; +And, with the parents, sure and slow, +_He_ went "saltin' de cole cash down." + +So with the _next_ boy--and each one +In turn, till _four_ of the five at last +Had been bought back; and, in each case, +With steady work and good homes not +Far from the parents, _they_ chipped in +To the family fund, with an equal grace. +Thus they managed and planned and wrought, +And the old folks throve--Till the night before +They were to start for the lone last son +In the rainy dawn--their money fast +Hid away in the house,--two mean, +Murderous robbers burst the door. +...Then, in the dark, was a scuffle--a fall-- +An old man's gasping cry--and then +A woman's fife-like shriek. + + ...Three men +Splashing by on horseback heard +The summons: And in an instant all +Sprung to their duty, with scarce a word. +And they were _in time_--not only to save +The lives of the old folks, but to bag +Both the robbers, and buck-and-gag +And land them safe in the county-jail-- +Or, as Aunty said, with a blended awe +And subtlety,--"Safe in de calaboose whah +De dawgs caint bite 'em!" + + --So prevail +The faithful!--So had the Lord upheld +His servants of both deed and prayer,-- +HIS the glory unparalleled-- +_Theirs_ the reward,--their every son +Free, at last, as the parents were! +And, as the driver ended there +In front of the little house, I said, +All fervently, "Well done! well done!" +At which he smiled, and turned his head +And pulled on the leaders' lines and--"See!" +He said,--"'you can read old Aunty's sign?" +And, peering down through these specs of mine +On a little, square board-sign, I read: + + "Stop, traveler, if you think it fit, + And quench your thirst for a-fip-and-a-bit. + The rocky spring is very clear, + And soon converted into beer." + +And, though I read aloud, I could +Scarce hear myself for laugh and shout +Of children--a glad multitude +Of little people, swarming out +Of the picnic-grounds I spoke about.-- +And in their rapturous midst, I see +Again--through mists of memory-- +A black old Negress laughing up +At the driver, with her broad lips rolled +Back from her teeth, chalk-white, and gums +Redder than reddest red-ripe plums. +He took from her hand the lifted cup +Of clear spring-water, pure and cold, +And passed it to me: And I raised my hat +And drank to her with a reverence that +My conscience knew was justly due +The old black face, and the old eyes, too-- +The old black head, with its mossy mat +Of hair, set under its cap and frills +White as the snows on Alpine hills; +Drank to the old _black_ smile, but yet +Bright as the sun on the violet,-- +Drank to the gnarled and knuckled old +Black hands whose palms had ached and bled +And pitilessly been worn pale +And white almost as the palms that hold +Slavery's lash while the victim's wail +Fails as a crippled prayer might fail.-- +Aye, with a reverence infinite, +I drank to the old black face and head-- +The old black breast with its life of light-- +The old black hide with its heart of gold. + + + + +HEAT-LIGHTNING + +There was a curious quiet for a space +Directly following: and in the face +Of one rapt listener pulsed the flush and glow +Of the heat-lightning that pent passions throw +Long ere the crash of speech.--He broke the spell-- +The host:--The Traveler's story, told so well, +He said, had wakened there within his breast +A yearning, as it were, to know _the rest_-- +That all unwritten sequence that the Lord +Of Righteousness must write with flame and sword, +Some awful session of His patient thought-- +Just then it was, his good old mother caught +His blazing eye--so that its fire became +But as an ember--though it burned the same. +It seemed to her, she said, that she had heard +It was the _Heavenly_ Parent never erred, +And not the _earthly_ one that had such grace: +"Therefore, my son," she said, with lifted face +And eyes, "let no one dare anticipate +The Lord's intent. While _He_ waits, _we_ will wait" +And with a gust of reverence genuine +Then Uncle Mart was aptly ringing in-- + + "'_If the darkened heavens lower, + Wrap thy cloak around thy form; + Though the tempest rise in power, + God is mightier than the storm!_'" + +Which utterance reached the restive children all +As something humorous. And then a call +For _him_ to tell a story, or to "say +A funny piece." His face fell right away: +He knew no story worthy. Then he must +_Declaim_ for them: In that, he could not trust +His memory. And then a happy thought +Struck some one, who reached in his vest and brought +Some scrappy clippings into light and said +There was a poem of Uncle Mart's he read +Last April in "_The Sentinel_." He had +It there in print, and knew all would be glad +To hear it rendered by the author. + + And, +All reasons for declining at command +Exhausted, the now helpless poet rose +And said: "I am discovered, I suppose. +Though I have taken all precautions not +To sign my name to any verses wrought +By my transcendent genius, yet, you see, +Fame wrests my secret from me bodily; +So I must needs confess I did this deed +Of poetry red-handed, nor can plead +One whit of unintention in my crime-- +My guilt of rhythm and my glut of rhyme.-- + + "Mænides rehearsed a tale of arms, + And Naso told of curious metat_mur_phoses; + Unnumbered pens have pictured woman's charms, + While crazy _I_'ve made poetry _on purposes!_" + +In other words, I stand convicted--need +I say--by my own doing, as I read. + + + + +UNCLE MART'S POEM + +THE OLD SNOW-MAN + +Ho! the old Snow-Man + That Noey Bixler made! +He looked as fierce and sassy + As a soldier on parade!-- +'Cause Noey, when he made him, + While we all wuz gone, you see, +He made him, jist a-purpose, + Jist as fierce as he could be!-- + But when we all got _ust_ to him, + Nobody wuz afraid + Of the old Snow-Man + That Noey Bixler made! + +'Cause Noey told us 'bout him + And what he made him fer:-- +He'd come to feed, that morning + He found we wuzn't here; +And so the notion struck him, + When we all come taggin' home +'Tud _s'prise_ us ef a' old Snow-Man + 'Ud meet us when we come! +So, when he'd fed the stock, and milked, + And ben back home, and chopped +His wood, and et his breakfast, he + Jist grabbed his mitts and hopped +Right in on that-air old Snow-Man + That he laid out he'd make +Er bust a trace _a-tryin_'--jist + Fer old-acquaintance sake!-- + But work like that wuz lots more fun. + He said, than when he played! + Ho! the old Snow-Man + That Noey Bixler made! + +He started with a big snow-ball, + And rolled it all around; +And as he rolled, more snow 'ud stick + And pull up off the ground.-- +He rolled and rolled all round the yard-- + 'Cause we could see the _track_, +All wher' the snow come off, you know, + And left it wet and black. +He got the Snow-Man's _legs-part_ rolled-- + In front the kitchen-door,-- +And then he hat to turn in then + And roll and roll some more!-- +He rolled the yard all round agin, + And round the house, at that-- +Clean round the house and back to wher' + The blame legs-half wuz at! + He said he missed his dinner, too-- + Jist clean fergot and stayed + There workin'. Ho! the old Snow-Man + That Noey Bixler made! + +And Noey said he hat to _hump_ + To git the _top-half_ on +The _legs-half!_--When he _did_, he said, + His wind wuz purt'-nigh gone.-- +He said, I jucks! he jist drapped down + There on the old porch-floor +And panted like a dog!--And then + He up! and rolled some more!-- +The _last_ batch--that wuz fer his head,-- + And--time he'd got it right +And clumb and fixed it on, he said-- + He hat to quit fer night!-- +And _then_, he said, he'd kep' right on + Ef they'd ben any _moon_ +To work by! So he crawled in bed-- + And _could_ a-slep' tel _noon_, + He wuz so plum wore out! he said,-- + But it wuz washin'-day, + And hat to cut a cord o' wood + 'Fore he could git away! + +But, last, he got to work agin,-- + With spade, and gouge, and hoe, +And trowel, too--(All tools 'ud do + What _Noey_ said, you know!) +He cut his eyebrows out like cliffs-- + And his cheekbones and chin +Stuck _furder_ out--and his old _nose_ + Stuck out as fur-agin! +He made his eyes o' walnuts, + And his whiskers out o' this +Here buggy-cushion stuffin'--_moss_, + The teacher says it is. +And then he made a' old wood'-gun, + Set keerless-like, you know, +Acrost one shoulder--kindo' like + Big Foot, er Adam Poe-- + Er, mayby, Simon Girty, + The dinged old Renegade! + _Wooh!_ the old Snow-Man + That Noey Bixler made! + +And there he stood, all fierce and grim, + A stern, heroic form: +What was the winter blast to him, + And what the driving storm?-- +What wonder that the children pressed + Their faces at the pane +And scratched away the frost, in pride + To look on him again?-- + What wonder that, with yearning bold, + Their all of love and care + Went warmest through the keenest cold + To that Snow-Man out there! + +But the old Snow-Man-- + What a dubious delight +He grew at last when Spring came on + And days waxed warm and bright.-- +Alone he stood--all kith and kin + Of snow and ice were gone;-- +Alone, with constant teardrops in + His eyes and glittering on +His thin, pathetic beard of black-- + Grief in a hopeless cause!-- +Hope--hope is for the man that _dies_-- + What for the man that _thaws!_ + O Hero of a hero's make!-- + Let _marble_ melt and fade, + But never _you_--you old Snow-Man + That Noey Bixler made! + + + + +"LITTLE JACK JANITOR" + +And there, in that ripe Summer-night, once more +A wintry coolness through the open door +And window seemed to touch each glowing face +Refreshingly; and, for a fleeting space, +The quickened fancy, through the fragrant air, +Saw snowflakes whirling where the roseleaves were, +And sounds of veriest jingling bells again +Were heard in tinkling spoons and glasses then. + +Thus Uncle Mart's old poem sounded young +And crisp and fresh and clear as when first sung, +Away back in the wakening of Spring +When his rhyme and the robin, chorusing, +Rumored, in duo-fanfare, of the soon +Invading johnny-jump-ups, with platoon +On platoon of sweet-williams, marshaled fine +To blooméd blarings of the trumpet-vine. + +The poet turned to whisperingly confer +A moment with "The Noted Traveler." +Then left the room, tripped up the stairs, and then +An instant later reappeared again, +Bearing a little, lacquered box, or chest, +Which, as all marked with curious interest, +He gave to the old Traveler, who in +One hand upheld it, pulling back his thin +Black lustre coat-sleeves, saying he had sent +Up for his "Magic Box," and that he meant +To test it there--especially to show +_The Children_. "It is _empty now_, you know."-- +He humped it with his knuckles, so they heard +The hollow sound--"But lest it be inferred +It is not _really_ empty, I will ask +_Little Jack Janitor_, whose pleasant task +It is to keep it ship-shape." + + Then he tried +And rapped the little drawer in the side, +And called out sharply "Are you in there, Jack?" +And then a little, squeaky voice came back,-- +"_Of course I'm in here--ain't you got the key +Turned on me!_" + + Then the Traveler leisurely +Felt through his pockets, and at last took out +The smallest key they ever heard about!-- +It,wasn't any longer than a pin: +And this at last he managed to fit in +The little keyhole, turned it, and then cried, +"Is everything swept out clean there inside?" +"_Open the drawer and see!--Don't talk to much; +Or else_," the little voice squeaked, "_talk in Dutch-- +You age me, asking questions!_" + + Then the man +Looked hurt, so that the little folks began +To feel so sorry for him, he put down +His face against the box and had to frown.-- +"Come, sir!" he called,--"no impudence to _me!_-- +You've swept out clean?" + + "_Open the drawer and see!_" +And so he drew the drawer out: Nothing there, +But just the empty drawer, stark and bare. +He shoved it back again, with a shark click.-- + +"_Ouch!_" yelled the little voice--"_un-snap it--quick!-- +You've got my nose pinched in the crack!_" + + And then +The frightened man drew out the drawer again, +The little voice exclaiming, "_Jeemi-nee!-- +Say what you want, but please don't murder me!_" + +"Well, then," the man said, as he closed the drawer +With care, "I want some cotton-batting for +My supper! Have you got it?" + + And inside, +All muffled like, the little voice replied, +"_Open the drawer and see!_" + + And, sure enough, +He drew it out, filled with the cotton stuff. +He then asked for a candle to be brought +And held for him: and tuft by tuft he caught +And lit the cotton, and, while blazing, took +It in his mouth and ate it, with a look +Of purest satisfaction. + + "Now," said he, +"I've eaten the drawer empty, let me see +What this is in my mouth:" And with both hands +He began drawing from his lips long strands +Of narrow silken ribbons, every hue +And tint;--and crisp they were and bright and new +As if just purchased at some Fancy-Store. +"And now, Bub, bring your cap," he said, "before +Something might happen!" And he stuffed the cap +Full of the ribbons. "_There_, my little chap, +Hold _tight_ to them," he said, "and take them to +The ladies there, for they know what to do +With all such rainbow finery!" + + He smiled +Half sadly, as it seemed, to see the child +Open his cap first to his mother..... There +Was not a ribbon in it anywhere! +"_Jack Janitor!_" the man said sternly through +The Magic Box--"Jack Janitor, did _you_ +Conceal those ribbons anywhere?" + + "_Well, yes,_" +The little voice piped--"_but you'd never guess +The place I hid 'em if you'd guess a year!_" + +"Well, won't you _tell_ me?" + + "_Not until you clear +Your mean old conscience_" said the voice, "_and make +Me first do something for the Children's sake._" + +"Well, then, fill up the drawer," the Traveler said, +"With whitest white on earth and reddest red!-- +Your terms accepted--Are you satisfied?" + +"_Open the drawer and see!_" the voice replied. + +"_Why, bless my soul!_"--the man said, as he drew +The contents of the drawer into view-- +"It's level-full of _candy!_--Pass it 'round-- +Jack Janitor shan't steal _that_, I'll be bound!"-- +He raised and crunched a stick of it and smacked +His lips.--"Yes, that _is_ candy, for a fact!-- +And it's all _yours!_" + + And how the children there +Lit into it!--O never anywhere +Was such a feast of sweetness! + + "And now, then," +The man said, as the empty drawer again +Slid to its place, he bending over it,-- +"Now, then, Jack Janitor, before we quit +Our entertainment for the evening, tell +Us where you hid the ribbons--can't you?" + + "_Well,_" +The squeaky little voice drawled sleepily-- +"_Under your old hat, maybe.--Look and see!_" + +All carefully the man took off his hat: +But there was not a ribbon under that.-- +He shook his heavy hair, and all in vain +The old white hat--then put it on again: +"Now, tell me, _honest_, Jack, where _did_ you hide +The ribbons?" + + "_Under your hat_" the voice replied.-- +"_Mind! I said 'under' and not 'in' it.--Won't +You ever take the hint on earth?--or don't +You want to show folks where the ribbons at?-- +Law! but I'm sleepy!--Under--unner your hat!_" + +Again the old man carefully took off +The empty hat, with an embarrassed cough, +Saying, all gravely to the children: "You +Must promise not to _laugh_--you'll all _want_ to-- +When you see where Jack Janitor has dared +To hide those ribbons--when he might have spared +My feelings.--But no matter!--Know the worst-- +Here are the ribbons, as I feared at first."-- +And, quick as snap of thumb and finger, there +The old man's head had not a sign of hair, +And in his lap a wig of iron-gray +Lay, stuffed with all that glittering array +Of ribbons ... "Take 'em to the ladies--Yes. +Good-night to everybody, and God bless +The Children." + + In a whisper no one missed +The Hired Man yawned: "He's a vantrilloquist" + + * * * * * + +So gloried all the night Each trundle-bed +And pallet was enchanted--each child-head +Was packed with happy dreams. And long before +The dawn's first far-off rooster crowed, the snore +Of Uncle Mart was stilled, as round him pressed +The bare arms of the wakeful little guest +That he had carried home with him.... + + "I think," +An awed voice said--"(No: I don't want a _dwink_.-- +Lay still.)--I think 'The Noted Traveler' he +'S the inscrutibul-est man I ever see!" + + +[Footnote 1: _Gilead_--evidently.--[Editor.] + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Child-World, by James Whitcomb Riley + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHILD-WORLD *** + +This file should be named 8cwld10.txt or 8cwld10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8cwld11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8cwld10a.txt + +Produced by David Starner, Maria Cecilia Lim +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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