“How the waters come down to Lodore.”
But we wuz dretful dissapinted, for the water didn’t come a-sweepin’ down with the force and fury Mr. Southey described—not at all. Josiah, who had hearn Thomas J. read the poem, wuz mad to think it wuzn’t so. “And,” sez he, in a threatenin’ way—
“I could tell Mr. Southey that we didn’t know none the better for his tellin’ ‘How the waters come down to Lodore.’
“Why,” sez he, “the mill-dam to our buzz-saw mill in Jonesville is furious agin as this, and more noble and impressin’ lookin’ by fur, and,” sez he, gettin’ all het up, “I’d love to tell Mr. Southey so.”
Sez I, “Josiah, don’t git nerved up and talk about jawin’ a man who has been dead for more’n fifty years.” Sez I, “It don’t sound decent in you—he meant well.”
Sez I, “He wuz good to his own family, and then think of how dretful good he wuz to Coleridge’s wife and children; though, to be sure,” sez I, “they wuz relations on Her side.”
“I understand that,” sez Josiah; “he could do that and not deserve any particular thanks to himself. I know how that is.”
I see he wuz insinuatin’ sunthin’ or ruther, but I wuzn’t browbeat, nor wuzn’t led off by him. Sez I—
“He writ first-rate prose, and wuz Poet Lauerate.
“That wuz what might be expected,” sez Josiah.