Idylls of the Skillet Fork

Chapter 26: XXIV The Labor Situation

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About This Book

A lively sequence of rural poems and sketches portrays daily life in a small farming community, blending comic dialect pieces and affectionate nature scenes. Recurring voices such as Bill and Laury relay homespun observations on chores, animals, local gossip, bootlegging, hunts, seasonal change, and wartime worries, while bird songs and landscape detail evoke both springtime abundance and drought. The collection alternates playful mischief with quieter melancholy, offering short vignettes that balance folksy humor, communal rituals, and reflective notes on labor and loss.

XXIV
The Labor Situation

“Don’t hardly seem fair,” said Bill with a hitch

Tew his gallus—the other was busted—

“Fer the papers an’ all, the public an’ sich”—

An’ I seen he was kind o’ disgusted—

“Ter praise up the workers ter home an’ not fitin’

An’ gittin’ all kinds o’ big pay,

An’ ’en strikin’ fer more—Whoa thar! Quit yer bitin’!”—

He was combin’ an breshin’ ol’ Gray—

“When the boys ‘over thar’ give up all thet they hed

Ter fite fer thirty bones per”—

An’ I couldn’t ezzac’ly tell what ’e nex’ said,

Fer ’is comb hed ketched in a burr.