The Project Gutenberg eBook of Pine Tree Ballads: Rhymed Stories of Unplaned Human Natur' up in Maine
Title: Pine Tree Ballads: Rhymed Stories of Unplaned Human Natur' up in Maine
Author: Holman Day
Release date: August 11, 2017 [eBook #55342]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by David Widger from page images generously
provided by the Internet Archive
PINE TREE BALLADS
Rhymed Stories of Unplaned Human Natur’ Up in Maine
By Holman F. Day
Boston: Small, Maynard & Company
1902
JOHN ANDREW PETERS, LL.D.
FORMER CHIEF JUSTICE OF
THE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT OF MAINE
I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME
IN MEMORY OF MANY YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP
AND IN SINCERE APPRECIATION
OF THE JURIST AND WIT
WHO HAS IN ALL DIGNITY
EVER TURNED A SMILING FACE TOWARD HIS MAINE
THAT HAS SMILED LOVINGLY BACK AT HIM
CONTENTS
WHEN THE ALLEGASH DRIVE GOES THROUGH
THE KNIGHT OF THE SPIKE-SOLE BOOTS
THE SONG OF THE MAN WHO DRIVES
ORADUDOLPH MOODY, REPRESENTATIVE-ELECT
TRIBUTE TO MR. ATKINS’S BASS VOICE
BALLADS OF “CAPERS AND ACTIONS”
FOREWORD
|THESE are plain tales of picturesque character-phases in Maine Yankeedom from the Allegash to the ocean. These are the men whose hands are blistered by plow-handle and ax, or whose calloused palms are gouged by the trawls. Their heads are as hard as the stones piled around their acres. Their wit is as keen as the bush-scythes with which they trim their rough pastures. But their hearts are as soft as the feather beds in their spare-rooms.
The frontispiece to this volume is from a photograph of “Uncle Solon” Chase, the widely known sage of Chase’s Mills in Andros-coggin county.
In Greenback days he won national fame as “Them Steers” and his quaint sayings have traveled from the Atlantic to the Pacific. There is no man in Maine who better typifies the homespun humor, honesty, and intelligence of Yankeedom. The picture opposite page 126 is from a photograph of the late Ezra Stephens of Oxford county, famed years ago as “the P. T. Barnum of Maine.” He originated the dancing turkey, the wonderful bird that appears in the story of “Ozy B. Orr.”
In another picture is shown “Jemimy” at her old loom and beside her are the swifts and the spinning wheel. The pictures illustrating “Elkanah B. Atkinson” (a poem commemorating a real episode in the life of Barney McGonldrick of Cherry field Tavern) and “John W. Jones” are character studies that will appeal to those who are acquainted with Maine rural life.
The thanks of the author and of the publish-ers are due to The Saturday Evening Post of Philadelphia, The Youth’s Companion, Ainslee’s Magazine, and Everybody’s Magazine, for permission to include in this volume verses which originally appeared in their columns, copyrighted by them.
PINE TREE BALLADS
OUR HOME FOLKS
FEEDIN’ THE STOCK
Hear the chorus in that tie-up, runch, ger-
runch, and runch and runch!
—There’s a row of honest critters! Does me
good to hear ’em munch.
When the barn is gettin’ dusky and the sun’s
behind the drifts,
—Touchin’ last the gable winder where the
dancin’ hay-dust sifts,
When the coaxin’ from the tie-up kind o’ hints
it’s five o’clock—
Wal, I’ve got a job that suits me—that’s the
chore of feedin’ stock.
We’ve got patches down to our house—honest
patches, though, and neat,
But we’d rather have the patches than to skinch
on what we eat.
Lots of work, and grub to back ye—that’s a
mighty wholesome creed.
—Critters fust, s’r, that’s my motto—give the
critters all they need. ‘
And the way we do at our house, marm and
me take what is left,
And—wal,—we ain’t goin’ hungry, as you’ll
notice by our heft.
Drat the man that’s calculatin’ when he meas-
ures out his hay,
Groanin’ ev’ry time he pitches ary forkful out
the bay;
Drat the man who feeds out ruff-scuff, wood
and wire from the swale,
’Cause he wants to press his herds’-grass, send
his clover off for sale.
Down to our house we wear patches, but it
ain’t nobody’s biz
Jest as long as them ‘ere critters git the best of
hay there is.
When the cobwebs on the rafters drip with
winter’s early dusk
And the rows of critters’ noses, damp with
breath as sweet as musk,
Toss and tease me from the tie-up—ain’t a job
that suits me more
Than the feedin’ of the cattle—that’s the reg’-
lar wind-up chore.
When I grain ’em or I meal ’em—wal, there’s
plenty in the bin,
And I give ’em quaker measure ev’ry time I
dip down in;
And the hay, wal, now I’ve cut it, and I own
it and it’s mine
And I jab that blamed old fork in, till you’d
think I’d bust a tine.
I ain’t doin’ it for praises—no one sees me but
the pup,
—And I get his apperbation, ‘cause he pounds
his tail, rup, rup!
No, I do it ‘cause I want to; ‘cause I couldn’t
sleep a wink,
If I thought them poor dumb critters lacked for
fodder or for drink.
And to have the scufflin’ barnful give a jolly
little blat
When you open up o’ mornin’s, ah, there’s com-
fort, friend, in that!
And you’ve prob’ly sometimes noticed, when
his cattle hate a man,
That it’s pretty sure his neighbors size him up
on that same plan.
But I’m solid in my tie-up; when I’ve finished
up that chore,
I enjoy it standin’ list’nin’ for a minit at the
door.
And the rustle of the fodder and the nuzzlin’
in the meal
And the runchin’s of their feedin’ make this
humble feller feel
That there ain’t no greater comfort than this
’ere—to understand
That a dozen faithful critters owe their com-
fort to my hand.
Oh, the dim old barn seems homelike, with its
overhanging mows,
With its warm and battened tie-up, full of well-
fed sheep and cows.
Then I shet the door behind me, drop the bar
and drive the pin
And, with Jeff a-waggin’ after, lug the foamin’
milk pails in.
That’s the style of things to our house—marm
and me we don’t pull up
Until ev’ry critter’s eatin’, from the cattle to
the pup.
Then the biskits and the spare-rib and plum
preserves taste good,
For we’re feelin’, me and mother, that we’re
actin’ ’bout’s we should.
Like as can be, after supper mother sews an-
other patch
And she says the duds look trampy, ’cause she
ain’t got goods to match.
Fust of all, though, comes the mealbins and
the hay-mows; after those
If there’s any extry dollars, wal, we’ll see about
new clothes.
But to-night, why, bless ye, mother, pull the
rug acrost the door;
—Warmth and food and peace and comfort—
let’s not pester God for more.
JOHN W. JONES
A sort of a double-breasted face had old John
W. Jones,
Reddened and roughened by sun and wind,
with angular high cheek-bones.
At the fair, one time, of the Social Guild he re-
ceived unique renown
By being elected unanimously the homeliest
man in town.
The maidens giggled, the women smiled, the
men laughed loud and long,
And old John W. leaned right back and ho-
hawed good and strong.
And never was jest too broad for him—for all
of the quip and chaff
That assailed his queer old mug through life
he had but a hearty laugh.
“Ho, ho”, he’d snort, “haw, haw”, he’d roar;
“that’s me, my friends, that’s me!
Now hain’t that the most skew-angled phiz
that ever ye chanced to see?”
And then he would tell us this little tale.
“’Twas one dark night”, said he,
“I was driving along in a piece of woods and
there wasn’t a ray to see,
And all to once my cart locked wheels with
another old chap’s cart;
We gee-ed and backed but we hung there fast,
and neither of us could start.
Then the stranger man he struck a match, to
see how he’d git away,
And I vum, he had the homeliest face I’ve seen
for many a day.
Wal, jest for a joke I grabbed his throat and
pulled my pipe-case out,
And the stranger reckoned I had a gun, and he
wrassled good and stout.
But I got him down on his back at last and
straddled acrost his chest,
And allowed to him that he’d better plan to
go to his last long rest.
He gasped and groaned he was poor and old
and hadn’t a blessed cent,
And almost blubbering asked to know what
under the sun I meant.
Said I, ‘I’ve sworn if I meet a man that’s
homelier ’n what I be,
I’ll kill him. I reckin I’ve got the man.’ Says
he, ‘Please let me see?’
So I loosened a bit while he struck a match;
he held it with trembling hand
While through the tears in his poor old eyes
my cross-piled face he scanned.
Then he dropped the match and he groaned
and said, ‘If truly ye think that I
Am ha’f as homely as what you be—please
shoot! I want to die.’”
And the story always would start the laugh
and Jones would drop his jaw,
And lean’way back and slap his leg and
laugh,
“Ho, haw—haw—haw-w-w!”
That was Jones,
—John W. Jones,
Queer, Gothic old structure of cob-piled bones;
His droll, red face
Had not a trace
Of comeliness or of special grace;
But I tell you, friends, that candor glowed
In those true old eyes—those deep old
eyes,
And love and faith and manhood showed
Without disguise—without disguise.
Though he certainly won a just renown
As the homeliest man we had in town.
He never had married—that old John Jones;
he’d grubbed on his little patch,
Supported his parents until they died, and then
he had lived “old bach”.
We had some suspicions we couldn’t prove:
for years had an unknown man
Distributed gifts to the poor in town on a sort
of a Santa Claus plan.
If a worthy old widow was needing wood—
some night would that wood be left,
There was garden truck placed in the barns of
those by mishap or drought bereft.
And once when the night was clear and bright
in the glorious month of June,
Poor broken-legged Johnson’s garden was
hoed in the light of the great white moon.
And often some farmer by sickness weighed,
and weary, discouraged and poor,
Would find a wad of worn old bills tucked
carefully under his door.
And the tracks in the sod of this man who trod
by night on his secret routes
Were suspiciously like the other tracks that
were left by John Jones’ boots.
And the wheel-marks wobbled extremely like
the trail of Jones’ old cart,
But whatever his mercies he hid them all in the
depths of his warm old heart.
For whenever the neighbors would pin him
down, he’d lift his faded hat,
“Now, say”, he’d laugh, “can a man be good
with a physog such as that?”
Then came the days—the black, dread days
when the small-pox swept our town,
With pest-house crowded from sill to eaves and
the nurses “taken down.”
And panic reigned and the best went wild and
even the doctors fled,
And scarce was there one to aid the sick or
bury the awful dead.
But there in that pest house day and night a
man with quiet tones
And steady heart kept still at work—and that
was old John Jones.
While ever his joke was, “What! Afraid?
Why, gracious me, I’m fine,
And if I weren’t, a few more dents won’t harm
this face of mine”.
But those who writhed and moaned in pain
within that loathsome place
Saw beauty not of man and earth upon that
gnarled old face.
And when he eased their pain-racked forms or
brought the cooling draught,
They wondered if this saint could be the man
at whom they’d laughed.
And thus he fought, unwearied, brave, until
the Terror passed,
—And then, poor old John W. Jones, he had
the small-pox last.
And worn by vigils, toil, and fast, the fate he
had defied
Descended on him, stern and fierce,—he died,
my friends, he died.
They held one service at the church for all the
village dead.
The pastor, when he came to Jones, he choked
a bit and said:
“If handsome is as handsome does—and now
I say to you
I verily—I honestly believe that saying true.
—If handsome is as handsome does, we had
right here in town
A man whose beauty fairly shone—from
Heaven itself brought down.
At first, perhaps, we failed to grasp the con-
tour of that face,
But now with God’s own light on it we see its
perfect grace.
And so I say our handsomest man”—the pas-
tor hushed his tones,
With streaming eyes looked up and said, “was
old John W. Jones
Such was Jones,
—John W. Jones,
Queer, Gothic old structure of cob-piled bones;
His quaint, red face
Had not a trace
Of comeliness or of special grace.
But I tell you, friends, we drop this shell,
Just over There—just over There!
Good thoughts, good deeds, good hearts will
tell
In moulding souls, serene and fair,
And Jones will stand with harp and crown,
The handsomest angel from our old town.