THE SON

Southern Ohio Market Town

I heard an old farm-wife,

Selling some barley,

Mingle her life with life

And the name “Charley.”

Saying: “The crop’s all in,

We’re about through now;

Long nights will soon begin,

We’re just us two now.

“Twelve bushel at sixty cents,

It’s all I carried—

He sickened making fence;

He was to be married—

“It feels like frost was near—

His hair was curly.

The spring was late that year,

But the harvest early.”