Well, now, if the hull blame roof’d blowed off I wouldn’t ’a keered,
But I seen as how Nance was skeered, so I sez, ‘By gracious, Nance,
I guess if we don’t turn, an’ cut back for the Crossroads, durn
The shelter we’ll git to-night by any kind of a chance!’
Then the mare stopped short an’ whinnied, an’ Nance jest said, ‘Oh, Si!’
An’ then commenced to cry, till I felt like cryin’ too;
I forgot about the storm, an’ jest hugged her close an’ warm,
An’ kissed her, an’ kissed her, an’ swore as how I’d be true.
Then Nance she quit her cryin’ an’ said she wastn’t skeered
So long’s she knowed I keered jest a leetle mite fur her;
But she guessed we’d better try an’ git home, an’ ‘by-an’-by
The storm ’ll stop, an’ anyways, it ain’t so very fur!’
My heart was that chock full I couldn’t find a word to say,
But she understood the way that I looked into her eyes!
In buffaler robe an’ rug I wrapped her warm an’ snug,
An’ got out an’ broke the mare a road all the way to Barnes’s Rise.
’Twas a tallish tramp, I tell you, a-leadin’ that flounderin’ mare
Thro’ snow drifts anywheres from four to six foot deep.
An’ a ‘painter’ now an’ then howled out from his mountin den;
But Nance, she never heered it, fur she must ’a fell to sleep.
It wasn’t fur from mornin’ when we come to Barnes’s Rise,—
An’ I found to my surprise I’d tramped nine mile an’ wasn’t tired.
I was in sech a happy dream it didn’t hardly seem
As the ride had been any tougher’n jest what I’d desired.
It was easier goin’ now, an’ Nance woke up all rosy.
She was sweeter’n any posy as I kissed her at the gate.
The dawn was jest a-growin’ so I wished her a Merry Christmas,
An’ remarked I must be goin’ as it might be gittin’ late!
We was married at the Crossroads jest six weeks from Christmas Eve;
An’ Nance an’ me believe in our parson’s innovations;
We ain’t much skeered o’ Rome, an’ we reckon he can preach some,
An’ we call that evenin’ sarvice a Providential Dispensation.
THE SUCCOUR OF GLUSKÂP
(A MICMAC LEGEND)
The happy valley laughed with sun,
The corn grew firm in stalk,
The lodges clustered safe where run
The streams of Peniawk.