HOT?—WELL, RATHER!
The sun come peekin’ crost the hills
With round, red, shinin’, smilin’ face
That broadened to a grin from ear
To ear,—a most perdigeous space!
Then he showed his teeth an’ slapped his sides
An’ laughed an’ shook with all his might
To think how ’tarnal hot ’t’ould be
Fer us a-sittin’ still ’fore night.
’Twas “purty warm this mornin’” ’fore
’Twas eight o’clock; an’ then ’twas found
“Quite warm”; then “hot”, an’ “awful hot”
Before the minute-hand’s tenth round.
At twelve ’twas “b’ilin’ hot”, and yet
No stop; ’twas “meltin’ hot” at two;
All said, “I’m dyin’ with the heat!”—
“The hottest day I ever knew!”
Why, stalks of corn that mornin’ growed
Full two foot—ears pupo’tional;
An’ then, ’fore night, ’twas dry an’ ripe
Like when you shuck it in the fall.
The steeples on the churches all
Was drawed to more’n three times their height,
An’ lightnin’-rods was stretched to wire
That melted off like wax ’fore night.
The weather-boardin’ all warped off
An’ shingles rolled in little tubes;
Big saw-logs doubled up in bows,
An’ water crystallized in cubes.
The hoops of barrels tumbled off
An’ wagon-tires follered suit;
The forests growed so awful fast
They all was pulled up by the root.
Men melted in the harvest-field
An’ fried to cracklin’s light as chaff,
A-sizzlin’ in a way that made
Old Nickie chuck hisse’f an’ laugh!
In one big city, folks all died
But Smith (Sid. Smith). This chap took off
His flesh an’ lolled ’round in his bones
(But it killed him;—caught cold, and died of a cough).
I can’t begin to tell how hot
It was—it can’t be even guessed.
It’s still so all-infernal hot
I can’t begin to try to rest.