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Jingles

Chapter 30: Escaped from the Law
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About This Book

A compact collection of short lyrical poems and light verse that shifts between playful sketches and earnest meditations. Recurring subjects include love and courtship, reflections on youth and aging, solitude, and small-town or frontier life. Several pieces celebrate natural settings such as the sea and mountain landscapes, using vivid but plain diction. Some poems employ humor and character sketches to portray everyday figures, while others dwell on memory, loss, and the passage of time. The overall tone balances simple, rhythmic lines with reflective and occasionally wistful moods.

Escaped from the Law

(In Three Acts)

ACT I—COMEDY
They started out all bright and gay,
The circuit they were going to play;
The manager to each man said—
“We’re dated forty weeks ahead;
Next week we play at Omaha,
With our great play, ‘Escaped from the Law.’”
ACT II—ROMANCE
At Omaha you hear folks tell,
Actors came to a hotel,
Hung their lithographs all around,
Played to empty seats and jumped the town;
Left their trunks all filled with straw,
And that same night escaped from the law.
ACT III—PATHOS
Everything seems to go wrong;
Actors’ shoes are almost gone.
Trudging down the track alone,
A thousand miles away from home;
Counting ties the last we saw
Of the company called, “Escaped from the Law.”
(Curtain)