We must get home; and, unremembering there
All gain of all ambitions otherwhere,
Rest—from the feverish victory, and the crown
Of conquest whose waste glory weighs us down.—
Fame's fairest gifts we toss back with disdain—
We must get home—we must get home again!
HOW JOHN QUIT THE FARM.
Nobody on the old farm here but Mother, me and John,
Except, of course, the extry he'p when harvest-time come on—
And then, I want to say to you, we needed he'p about,
As you'd admit, ef you'd a-seen the way the crops turned out!
A better quarter-section, ner a richer soil warn't found
Than this-here old-home place o' ourn fer fifty miles around!—
The house was small—but plenty-big we found it from the day
That John—our only livin' son—packed up and went way.
You see, we tuck sich pride in John—his mother more 'n me—
That's natchurul; but both of us was proud as proud could be;
Fer the boy, from a little chap, was most oncommon bright,
And seemed in work as well as play to take the same delight.
He allus went a-whistlin' round the place, as glad at heart
As robins up at five o'clock to git an airly start;
And many a time 'fore daylight Mother's waked me up to say—
"Jest listen, David!—listen!—Johnny's beat the birds to-day!"
High-sperited from boyhood, with a most inquirin' turn,—
He wanted to learn ever'thing on earth they was to learn:
He'd ast more plaguey questions in a mortal-minute here
Than his grandpap in Paradise could answer in a year!
And read! w'y, his own mother learnt him how to read and spell;
And "The Childern of the Abbey"—w'y, he knowed that book as well
At fifteen as his parents!—and "The Pilgrim's Progress," too—
Jest knuckled down, the shaver did, and read 'em through and through!
At eighteen, Mother 'lowed the boy must have a better chance—
That we ort to educate him, under any circumstance;
And John he j'ined his mother, and they ding-donged and kep' on,
Tel I sent him off to school in town, half glad that he was gone.
But—I missed him—w'y of course I did!—The Fall and Winter through
I never built the kitchen-fire, er split a stick in two,
Er fed the stock, er butchered, er swung up a gambrel-pin,
But what I thought o' John, and wished that he was home agin.