APOLOGY FOR THERE BEING NO PREFACE.
AUTHOR (considering). "People expect a preface; and this is the place for one. But there is no preface in the great 'Indian Edda' which has occasioned this poem. The author of that work gives his explanation to the public in the Notes and Vocabulary; then, of course, mine also, ought (and is) to be found in the Notes and Vocabulary to 'The Song of Drop o' Wather.'"
Then follow the contents, consisting of an Introduction and thirteen chapters, namely:—
I. Drop o' Wather's Childhood.
II. Drop o' Wather and Pudgy-Wheezy.
III. Drop o' Wather's Fasting.
IV. Drop o' Wather's Friends.
V. Drop o' Wather's Filching.
VI. Drop o' Wather's Wooing.
VII. Drop o' Wather's Wedding.
VIII. The Ghost of the Star and Garter.
IX. Bilking the Runners.
X. Paw-Paw-Keeneyes.
XI. The Hunting of Paw-Paw-Keeneyes.
XII. The Fate of Queershin.
XIII. Drop o' Water's Departure.
In its completeness and closeness of imitation, this anonymous work is the best parody extant of the Song of Hiawatha. From the introduction, and the first chapter, it will be gathered that the hero is a poor little gutter child, who grows up to be a thief. The following chapters trace his career in crime, and the last describes his departure to Australia as a repentant emigrant.