"At evening, when the ironin' 's done, an' Aunty's fixed the
fire,
An' filled an' lit the lamp, an' trimmed the wick an' turned it
higher,
An' fetched the wood all in fer night, an' locked the kitchen
door,
An' stuffed the ole crack where the wind blows in up through the
floor—
She sets the kittle on the coals, an' biles an' makes the tea,
An' fries the liver an' the mush, an' cooks a egg fer me,
An' sometimes—when I cough so hard—her elderberry wine
Don't go so bad fer little boys with 'Curv'ture of the Spine'!"
"Look!" whispered my friend, touching me with his elbow. "Look at the Professor!"
"Look at everybody!" said I. And the artless little voice went on again half quaveringly:—
"But Aunty's all so childish-like on my account, you see
I'm 'most afeard she'll be took down—an' 'at's what bothers
ME!—
'Cause ef my good ole Aunty ever would git sick an' die,
I don't know what she'd do in Heaven—till I come, by an' by:—
Fer she's so ust to all my ways, an' ever'thing, you know,
An' no one there like me, to nurse an' worry over so!—
'Cause all the little childerns there's so straight an' strong
an' fine,
They's nary angel 'bout the place with 'Curv'ture of the
Spine'!"
The old Professor's face was in his handkerchief; so was my friend's in his; and so was mine in mine, as even now my pen drops and I reach for it again. I half regret joining the mad party that had gathered an hour later in the old law office where these two graceless characters held almost nightly revel, the instigators and conniving hosts of a reputed banquet whose MENU'S range confined itself to herrings, or "blind robins," dried beef, and cheese, with crackers, gingerbread, and sometimes pie; the whole washed down with anything but
"——Wines that heaven knows when
Had sucked the fire of some forgotten sun,
And kept it through a hundred years of gloom
Still glowing in a heart of ruby."
But the affair was memorable. The old Professor was himself lured into it and loudest in his praise of Hedrick's realistic art; and I yet recall him at the orgie's height, excitedly repulsing the continued slurs and insinuations of the clammy-handed Sweeney, who, still contending against the old man's fulsome praise of his more fortunate rival, at last openly declared that Hedrick was NOT a poet, NOT a genius, and in no way worthy to be classed in the same breath with HIMSELF—"the gifted but unfortunate SWEENEY, sir—the unacknowledged author, sir 'y gad, sir!—of the two poems that held you spellbound to-night!"
A CALLER FROM BOONE
BENJ. F. JOHNSON VISITS THE EDITOR
It was a dim and chill and loveless afternoon in the late fall of eighty-three when I first saw the genial subject of this hasty sketch. From time to time the daily paper on which I worked had been receiving, among the general literary driftage of amateur essayists, poets and sketch-writers, some conceits in verse that struck the editorial head as decidedly novel; and, as they were evidently the production of an unlettered man, and an OLD man, and a farmer at that, they were usually spared the waste-basket, and preserved—not for publication, but to pass from hand to hand among the members of the staff as simply quaint and mirth-provoking specimens of the verdancy of both the venerable author and the Muse inspiring him. Letters as quaint as were the poems invariably accompanied them, and the oddity of these, in fact, had first called attention to the verses. I well remember the general merriment of the office when the first of the old man's letters was read aloud, and I recall, too, some of his comments on his own verse, verbatim. In one place he said: "I make no doubt you will find some purty SAD spots in my poetry, considerin'; but I hope you will bear in mind that I am a great sufferer with rheumatizum, and have been, off and on, sence the cold New Years. In the main, however," he continued, "I allus aim to write in a cheerful, comfortin' sperit, so's ef the stuff hangs fire, and don't do no good, it hain't a-goin' to do no harm,—and them's my honest views on poetry."