JOHN W. JONES
A sort of a double-breasted face had old John
W. Jones,
Reddened and roughened by sun and wind,
with angular high cheek-bones.
At the fair, one time, of the Social Guild he re-
ceived unique renown
By being elected unanimously the homeliest
man in town.
The maidens giggled, the women smiled, the
men laughed loud and long,
And old John W. leaned right back and ho-
hawed good and strong.
And never was jest too broad for him—for all
of the quip and chaff
That assailed his queer old mug through life
he had but a hearty laugh.
“Ho, ho”, he’d snort, “haw, haw”, he’d roar;
“that’s me, my friends, that’s me!
Now hain’t that the most skew-angled phiz
that ever ye chanced to see?”
And then he would tell us this little tale.
“’Twas one dark night”, said he,
“I was driving along in a piece of woods and
there wasn’t a ray to see,
And all to once my cart locked wheels with
another old chap’s cart;
We gee-ed and backed but we hung there fast,
and neither of us could start.
Then the stranger man he struck a match, to
see how he’d git away,
And I vum, he had the homeliest face I’ve seen
for many a day.
Wal, jest for a joke I grabbed his throat and
pulled my pipe-case out,
And the stranger reckoned I had a gun, and he
wrassled good and stout.
But I got him down on his back at last and
straddled acrost his chest,
And allowed to him that he’d better plan to
go to his last long rest.
He gasped and groaned he was poor and old
and hadn’t a blessed cent,
And almost blubbering asked to know what
under the sun I meant.
Said I, ‘I’ve sworn if I meet a man that’s
homelier ’n what I be,
I’ll kill him. I reckin I’ve got the man.’ Says
he, ‘Please let me see?’
So I loosened a bit while he struck a match;
he held it with trembling hand
While through the tears in his poor old eyes
my cross-piled face he scanned.
Then he dropped the match and he groaned
and said, ‘If truly ye think that I
Am ha’f as homely as what you be—please
shoot! I want to die.’”
And the story always would start the laugh
and Jones would drop his jaw,
And lean’way back and slap his leg and
laugh,
“Ho, haw—haw—haw-w-w!”
That was Jones,
—John W. Jones,
Queer, Gothic old structure of cob-piled bones;
His droll, red face
Had not a trace
Of comeliness or of special grace;
But I tell you, friends, that candor glowed
In those true old eyes—those deep old
eyes,
And love and faith and manhood showed
Without disguise—without disguise.
Though he certainly won a just renown
As the homeliest man we had in town.
He never had married—that old John Jones;
he’d grubbed on his little patch,
Supported his parents until they died, and then
he had lived “old bach”.
We had some suspicions we couldn’t prove:
for years had an unknown man
Distributed gifts to the poor in town on a sort
of a Santa Claus plan.
If a worthy old widow was needing wood—
some night would that wood be left,
There was garden truck placed in the barns of
those by mishap or drought bereft.
And once when the night was clear and bright
in the glorious month of June,
Poor broken-legged Johnson’s garden was
hoed in the light of the great white moon.
And often some farmer by sickness weighed,
and weary, discouraged and poor,
Would find a wad of worn old bills tucked
carefully under his door.
And the tracks in the sod of this man who trod
by night on his secret routes
Were suspiciously like the other tracks that
were left by John Jones’ boots.
And the wheel-marks wobbled extremely like
the trail of Jones’ old cart,
But whatever his mercies he hid them all in the
depths of his warm old heart.
For whenever the neighbors would pin him
down, he’d lift his faded hat,
“Now, say”, he’d laugh, “can a man be good
with a physog such as that?”
Then came the days—the black, dread days
when the small-pox swept our town,
With pest-house crowded from sill to eaves and
the nurses “taken down.”
And panic reigned and the best went wild and
even the doctors fled,
And scarce was there one to aid the sick or
bury the awful dead.
But there in that pest house day and night a
man with quiet tones
And steady heart kept still at work—and that
was old John Jones.
While ever his joke was, “What! Afraid?
Why, gracious me, I’m fine,
And if I weren’t, a few more dents won’t harm
this face of mine”.
But those who writhed and moaned in pain
within that loathsome place
Saw beauty not of man and earth upon that
gnarled old face.
And when he eased their pain-racked forms or
brought the cooling draught,
They wondered if this saint could be the man
at whom they’d laughed.
And thus he fought, unwearied, brave, until
the Terror passed,
—And then, poor old John W. Jones, he had
the small-pox last.
And worn by vigils, toil, and fast, the fate he
had defied
Descended on him, stern and fierce,—he died,
my friends, he died.
They held one service at the church for all the
village dead.
The pastor, when he came to Jones, he choked
a bit and said:
“If handsome is as handsome does—and now
I say to you
I verily—I honestly believe that saying true.
—If handsome is as handsome does, we had
right here in town
A man whose beauty fairly shone—from
Heaven itself brought down.
At first, perhaps, we failed to grasp the con-
tour of that face,
But now with God’s own light on it we see its
perfect grace.
And so I say our handsomest man”—the pas-
tor hushed his tones,
With streaming eyes looked up and said, “was
old John W. Jones
Such was Jones,
—John W. Jones,
Queer, Gothic old structure of cob-piled bones;
His quaint, red face
Had not a trace
Of comeliness or of special grace.
But I tell you, friends, we drop this shell,
Just over There—just over There!
Good thoughts, good deeds, good hearts will
tell
In moulding souls, serene and fair,
And Jones will stand with harp and crown,
The handsomest angel from our old town.