(If overjoyed he was) at having got me

Where I must judge if what he knew about an axe

That not everybody else knew was to count

For nothing in the measure of a neighbor.

Hard if, though cast away for life with Yankees,

A Frenchman couldn’t get his human rating!

Mrs. Baptiste came in and rocked a chair

That had as many motions as the world:

One back and forward, in and out of shadow,

That got her nowhere; one more gradual,