A. B. APPLETON, “PIRUT”
Abbott B. Appleton went to the fair
(Sing hey! for the wind among his whiskers),
Saw curious “dewin’s” while he was down
there
‘Mongst the gamblers, the sports and the frisk-
ers.
He carried his bills in a wallet laid flat—
An old-fashioned calf-skin as black as your hat;
He was feeling so well he was easy to touch—
Then he hadn’t as much; no, there wasn’t as
much.
He noticed a crowd’round a pleasant-faced
man
Whose business seemed based on a curious plan;
He asked for a quarter from each in the crowd,
Put the coin in his hat, and he forthwith al-
lowed
That simply to advertise he would restore
His quarter to each, adding three quarters
more.
Now Abbott B. Appleton he did invest—
Anxious to share in these spoils with the rest.
Man asked for ten dollars, and Abbott, said he:
“Why, sartin! And then we’ll git thutty back
free.”
But the man who was running the charity
game
Informed him it didn’t work always the same,
And Abbott B. Appleton got for his ten
A smile—and the man didn’t play it again.
Then Abbott, in order to make himself square,
Got after the rest of the snides at the fair.
He hunted the pea, but he never could tell
When “the darned little critter” was under
the shell.
He shot at a peg with a big, swinging ball,
Five dollars a shot—didn’t hit it at all.
And he finally found himself “gone all to
smash,”
With wisdom, a lot—and two dollars in cash.
Abbott B. Appleton cursed at the fair
(Sing fie! for a man who ’tended meetin’),
And he said to himself, “Gaul swat it, I swear
Them games is just rigged up for heatin’.
I thought they was honest down here in this
town;
I swow if I hadn’t I wouldn’t come down;
But if cheatin’s their caper I guess there’s idees
That folks up in Augerville have, if ye please.
I’m a pretty straight man when they use me all
square,
But I’m pirut myself at a Pirut-town fair.
I won’t pick their pockets to git back that
dough,
But I reckin’ I’ll giv’ ’em an Augerville show.”
Abbott B. Appleton “barked” at the fair
(Sing sakes! how the people they did gather),
And his cross-the-lot voice it did bellow and
blare
Till it seemed that his lungs were of leather.
He said that he had there inside of his pen
Most singular fowl ever heard of by men:
“The Giant Americanized Cock-a-too,”
With his feathers, some red and some white,
and some blue.
He promised if ever its like lived before
He’d give back their money right there at the
door.
Then he vowed that the sight of the age was
within.
“’Twill never,” he shouted. “be seen here agin..
’Tis an infant white annercononda, jest brought
From the African wilds, where it lately was
caught.
The only one ever heern tell of before,
All wild and untamed, that far foreign shore.”
Abbott B. Appleton raked in the tin.
(Sing chink! for the money that he salted.)
Then he opened the gates and he let ’em all in,
And then—well, then Abbott defaulted.
It was time that he did, for the people had
found
Just a scared Brahma hen squatting there on
the ground;
Her plumage was decked in a way to surprise,
With turkey-tail streamers all colored with
dyes;
And above, on a placard, this sign in plain
sight:
“There’s nothin’ else like her. I trimmed her
last night”
In a little cracked flask was an angle-worm
curled—
“Young annercononda, sole one in the
world.”
And another sign stated, “He’s small, I sup-
pose,
But if he hain’t big enough, wait till he grows.”
And Abbott B. Appleton, speeding afar,
Was counting his roll in a hurrying car,
Saying still, “As a general rule I’m all square,
But I’m pirut myself at a Pirut-town fair.”