“I knew it,” said Bowie Knife Bill, folding his arms with a silent smile, “but what surprises me is how he ever got this far alive.”
Nothing to Say
“You can tell your paper,” the great man said,
“I refused an interview.
I have nothing to say on the question, sir,
Nothing to say to you.”
And then he talked till the sun went down
And the chickens went to roost:
And he seized the coat of the poor Post man
And never his hold he loosed.
And the sun went down and the moon came up,
And he talked till the dawn of day;
Though he said, “On this subject mentioned by you,
I have nothing whatever to say.”
And down the reporter dropped to sleep,
And flat on the floor he lay;
And the last he heard was the great man’s words:
“I have nothing at all to say.”
“Goin Home Fur Christmas”
Pa fussed at ma, and said By gun!
There wa’n’t no use a talkin’;
Times wuz too hard to travel round,
In any way ’cept walkin’,
And said ’twas nonsense anyhow,
Folks didn’t want no visitors;
And said ma needn’t talk no more,
’Bout goin’ home for Christmas.
“I’d like to see ’em all,” says ma,
All pale and almost cryin’;
A gazin’ out the window, where
The snow wuz fairly flyin’;
“I’ve been a thinkin’, oh so long,
’Bout mother and my sisters;
And savin’ every cent I could
To’ards goin’ home for Christmas.”
But pa he frowned and then ma sighed.
Just once, and kinder’ smilin’,
Says: “Well, les’ go an’ have some tea,
The water’s all a-bilin’.”
To-day pa called us children in
To ma’s room—he wuz cryin’—
And ma wuz—oh so white and still,
And cold where she wuz lyin’.
She kinder roused up when we come,
And turned her face and kissed us,
And says: “Good-by—oh good-by, dears!
I’m goin’ home fur Christmas!”