Facts is, cuttin' down a tree,
The blame thing had sorto' fell
In a twist-like—mercy me!
And had ketched him.—Couldn't tell,
Wess said, how he'd managed—yit
He'd got both legs under it!
Fainted and come to, I s'pose,
'Bout a dozen times whilse they
Chopped him out!—And wife she froze
To him!—bresh his hair away
And smile cheerful'—only when
He'd faint.—Cry and kiss him then.
Had his nerve!—And nussed him through,—
Neghbors he'pped her—all she'd stand.—
Had a loom, and she could do
Carpet-weavin' railly grand!—
"'Sides," she ust to laugh and say,
"She'd have Wess, now, night and day!"
As fer him, he'd say, says-ee,
"I'm resigned to bein' lame:—
They was four coons up that tree,
And hounds got 'em, jest the same!"
'Peared like, one er two legs less
Never worried "Coon-dog Wess"!
LINES TO
PERFESSER JOHN CLARK RIDPATH
A. M., LL. D. T-Y-TY!
[Cumposed by A Old Friend of the Fambily sence 'way back in the Forties, when they Settled nigh Fillmore, Putnam County, this State, whare John was borned and growed up, you might say, like the wayside flower.]
Your neghbors in the country, whare you come from, hain't fergot!—
We knowed you even better than your own-self, like as not.
We profissied your runnin'-geers 'ud stand a soggy load
And pull her, purty stiddy, up a mighty rocky road:
We been a-watchin' your career sence you could write your name—
But way you writ it first, I'll say, was jest a burnin' shame!—
Your "J. C." in the copybook, and "Ridpath"—mercy-sakes!—
Quiled up and tide in dubble bows, lookt like a nest o' snakes!—
But you could read it, I suppose, and kindo' gloted on
A-bein' "J. C. Ridpath" when we only called you "John."
But you'd work 's well as fool, and what you had to do was done:
We've watched you at the woodpile—not the woodshed—wasent none,—
And snow and sleet, and haulin', too, and lookin' after stock,
And milkin', nights, and feedin' pigs,—then turnin' back the clock,
So's you could set up studyin' your 'Rethmatic, and fool
Your Parents, whilse a-piratin' your way through winter school!
And I've heerd tell—from your own folks—you've set and baked your face
A-readin' Plutark Slives all night by that old fi-er-place.—
Yit, 'bout them times, the blackboard, onc't, had on it, I de-clare,
"Yours truly, J. Clark Ridpath."—And the teacher—left it thare!