For by the greatest bit of luck, our house is on his bate.”
Russell’s crowning effort was a piece of dialect verse entitled The First Banjo. It appeared in Scribner’s, and is worthy of reprint here:
THE FIRST BANJO.
Go ’way fiddle!—folks is tired o’ hearin’ you a-squawkin’.
Keep silence fur yo’ betters—don’t you heah de banjo talkin’?
About de ’possum’s tail she’s gwine to lecter—ladies, listen!—
About de ha’r what isn’t dar, an’ why de ha’r is missin’.
“Dar’s gwine to be an oberflow,” said Noah, lookin’ solemn—
For Noah tuk the Herald, an’ he read de ribber column—
An’ so he sot his hands to work a-cl’arin’ timber-patches,