We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to
the shape of a niblick's shaft,
We have learned to make a mashie with a
wondrous handicraft,
We know that a hazard is often played best by
re-driving off,
But the Devil whoops as he whooped of old, "It's
easy, but is it golf?"
When the flicker of summer falls faint on the
Clubroom's gold and green,
The sons of Adam sit them down and boast of
strokes unseen;
They talk of stymies and brassie lies to the tune
of the steward's cough,
But the Devil whispers in their ears, "Gadzooks!
But that's not golf!"
Now if we could win to the Eden Tree where
the Nine-Mile Links are laid,
And seat ourselves where Man first swore as he
drove from the grateful shade,
And if we could play where our Fathers played
and follow our swings well through,
By the favor of God we might know of Golf
what our Father Adam knew.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
THE MINISTER'S WOOING
"Wal, the upshot on't was, they fussed and fuzzled and wuzzled till they'd drinked up all the tea in the teapot; and then they went down and called on the Parson, and wuzzled him all up talkin' about this, that, and t'other that wanted lookin' to, and that it was no way to leave everything to a young chit like Huldy, and that he ought to be lookin' about for an experienced woman.
"The Parson, he thanked 'em kindly, and said he believed their motives was good, but he didn't go no further.
"He didn't ask Mis' Pipperidge to come and stay there and help him, nor nothin' o' that kind; but he said he'd attend to matters himself. The fact was, the Parson had got such a likin' for havin' Huldy 'round that he couldn't think o' such a thing as swappin' her off for the Widder Pipperidge.
"'But,' he thought to himself, 'Huldy is a good girl; but I oughtn't to be a-leavin' everything to her—it's too hard on her. I ought to be instructin' and guidin' and helpin' of her; 'cause 'tain't everybody could be expected to know and do what Mis' Carryl did'; and so at it he went; and Lordy massy! didn't Huldy hev a time on't when the minister began to come out of his study and wanted to ten' 'round an' see to things? Huldy, you see, thought all the world of the minister, and she was 'most afraid to laugh; but she told me she couldn't, for the life of her, help it when his back was turned, for he wuzzled things up in the most singular way. But Huldy, she'd just say, 'Yes, sir,' and get him off into his study, and go on her own way.
"'Huldy,' says the minister one day, 'you ain't experienced outdoors; and when you want to know anything you must come to me.'