THE STOCK IN THE TIE-UP

I’m workin’ this week in the wood lot; a hearty

old job, you can bet;

I finish my chores with a larntern, and marin has

the table all set

By the time I get in with the milkin’; and after

I wash at the sink,

And marm sets a saucer o’ strainin’s for the cat

and the kittens to drink.

Your uncle is ready for supper, with an appetite

whet to an edge

That’ll cut like a bush-scythe in swale-grass, and

couldn’t be dulled on a ledge.

And marm, she slats open the oven, and pulls

out a heapin’ full tin

Of the rippin’est cream-tartar biskit a man ever

pushed at his chin.

We pile some more wood on the fire, and open

the damper full blare,

And pull up and pitch into supper—and com-

fort—and taste good—wal, there!

And the wind swooshes over the chimbly, and

scrapes at the shingles cross grain,

But good double winders and bankin’ are mighty

good friends here in Maine.

I look ’crost the table to mother, and marm she

looks over at me,

And passes another hot biskit and says, “Won’t

ye have some more tea?”

And while I am stirrin’ the sugar, I relish the

sound of the storm.

For, thank the good Lord, we are cosy and the

stock in the tie-up is warm.

I tell ye, the song o’ the fire and the chirruping

hiss o’ the tea,

The roar of the wind in the chimbly, they sound

dreadful cheerful to me.

But they’d harrer me, plague me, and fret me,

unless as I set here I knew

That the critters are munchin’ their fodder and

bedded and comf’table too.

These biskits are light as a feather, but, boy,

they’d be heavier’n lead

If I thought that my hosses was shiv’rin’, if I

thought that my cattle warn’t fed.

There’s men in the neighborhood ’round me who

pray som’w’at louder than me,

They wear better clothes, sir, on Sunday—chip

in for the heathen Chinee,

But the cracks in the sides o’ their tie-ups are

wide as the door o’ their pew,

And the winter comes in there a-howlin’, with

the sleet and the snow peltin’ through.

Step in there, sir, ary a mornin’ and look at their

critters! ’Twould seem

As if they were bilers or engines, and all o’

them chock full o’ steam.

I’ve got an old-fashioned religion that calkalates

Sundays for rest,

But if there warn’t time, sir, on week days to

batten a tie-up, I’m blest

I’d use up a Sunday or such-like, and let the

durned heathen folks go

While I fastened some boards on the lintel to

keep out the frost and the snow.

I’d stand all the frowns of the parson before I’d

have courage to face

The dumb holler eyes o’ the critters hooked up

in a frosty old place.

And I’ll bet ye that in the Hereafter the men

who have stayed on their knees

And let some poor, fuzzy old cattle stand out in

a tie-up and freeze,

Will find that the heat o’ the Hot Place is keyed

to an extra degree

For the men who forgot to consider that critters

have feelin’s same’s we.

I dasn’t go thinkin’ o’ tie-ups where winter goes

whistlin’ through.

Where cattle are humped at their stanchions

with scarcely the gumption to moo.

But I’m glad for the sake of Hereafter that

mine ain’t the sin and the guilt,

And I tell you I relish my feelin’s when I pull

up the big patchwork quilt.

I can laugh at the pelt o’ the snowflakes, and

grin at the slat o’ the storm,

And thank the good Lord I can sleep now; the

stock in the tie-up is warm.