BUSTED THE “TEST YOUR STRENGTH”
When pa was down to Topsham fair
I snooped around and heard him swear
To Jotham Briggs that it seemed to him
That muscle nowadays was slim,
For he said he’d stood there quite a length,
Seein’ folks whang at the “test your strength,”
And there wasn’t a one in all that spell
Who’d hit a crack that had tapped the bell.
And pa talked loud and he sassed the crowd,
And the crowd sassed pa, and he allowed
He’d show ’em what; and so old Jote
Just held his hat and his vest and coat;
And pa he rolled his sleeves up tight,
Hauled out his plug and took a bite.
He whirled one arm in wind-mill style,
—Then whirled the other one awhile.
He picked his pessle out at length
And sassed the great, tall “test your strength.”
“I’m goin’ to soak ye now,” says pa,
“You’ll think it’s y’earthquakes by the jar.
Git out the way and giv’ me swing,
—I’ll bust the ha’slet out the thing.”
And pa he spit in both his fists
And give the handle two three twists,
And swung the beetle round and round
To give one big, gol-rippin’ pound.
One knee was right up’ginst his chin,
His eyes stuck out, his lips sucked in,
And down he fetched her with a jolt,
But pa—but pa—he missed his holt!
He lost his grip, the pessle flew,
And folks they scattered, I tell you.
Some chaps fell down and some they ducked,
And them fur off, by gosh, they hucked.
For that air pessle, sir, it come
Sky-hootin’ like a ten-inch bomb.
It landed more’n eight rods away
Right through the top of Drew’s new shay,
—Right ’twixt the gal and Ezry Drew,
And hully gee, it scart ’em blue.
While pa—wal, pa, he jest turned green
—Gawked fust at Drew, then that machine.
And hammed and stuttered out at length,
“I aimed ’er at that to test your strength’!”
“Good eye!” says Ez, as mad as sin,
And then he snorted, “Drunk agin!”
And pa—wal, warn’t a thing to say,
’Cept pull,—and ask Ez, “What’s to pay?”
“WHEN A MAN GETS OLD”
The clash and the clatter of mowing-machines
Float up where the old man stands and leans
His trembling hands on the worn old snath,
As he looks afar in the broadening path,
Where the shivering grasses melt beneath
A seven-foot bar and its chattering teeth.
When a man gits old, says he,
When a man gits old,
He is mighty small pettaters
As I’ve just been told.
I used to mow at the head of the crew,
And I cut a swath that was wide as two.
—Covered a yard, sah, at every sweep;
The man that follered me had to leap.
I made the best of the critters squeal,
And nary a feller could nick my heel.
The crowd that follered, they took my road
As I walked away from the best that mowed.
But I can’t keep up with the boys no more,
My arms are stiff and my cords are sore:
And they’ve given this rusty scythe to me
—It has hung two years in an apple-tree—
And told me to trim along the edge
Where the mowing-machine has skipped the
ledge.
It seems, sah, skurcely a year ago
That I was a-showin’ ’em how to mow,
A-showin’ ’em how, with the tanglin’ grass
Topplin’ and failin’, to let me pass;
A-showing ’em how, with a five-foot steel,
And never a man who could nick my heel.
But now it’s the day of the hot young blood,
And I’m doin’ the job of the fuddy-dud;
Hacking the sides of the dusty road
And the corner clumps where the men ain’
mowed.
And that’s the way, a man gits told,
He’s smaller pettaters when he grows old.
I’VE GOT THEM CALVES TO VEAL
It’s a jolly sort of season, is the spring—is the
spring,
And there isn’t any reason for not feeling like a
king.
The sun has got flirtatious and he kisses Mis-
tress Maine,
And she pouts her lips, a-saying, “Mister, can’t
you come again?”
The hens are all a-laying, the potatoes sprouting
well,
And fodder spent so nicely that I’ll have some
hay to sell.
But when I get to feeling just as well as I can feel,
All to once it comes across me that I’ve got
them calves to veal.
Oh! I can’t go in the stanchion, look them
mothers in the eye,
For I’m meditatin’ murder; planning how their
calves must die.
Every time them little shavers grab a teat, it
wrings my heart,
—Hate to see ’em all so happy, for them cows
and calves must part.
That’s the reason I’m so mournful; that’s the
reason in the spring
I go feeling just like Nero or some other wicked
thing,
For I have to slash and slaughter; have to set
an iron heel
On the feelings of them mothers; I have got
them calves to veal.
Spring is happy for the poet and the lover and
the girl,
But the farmer has to do things that will make
his harslet curl.
And the thing that hits me hardest is to stand
the lonesome moos
Of that stanchion full of critters when they find
they’re going to lose
Little Spark-face, Little Brindle—when the
time has come to part,
And the calves go off a-blatting in a butcher’s
rattling cart.
Though the cash the butcher pays me sort of
smooths things up and salves
All the really rawest feeling when I sell them
little calves,
Still I’m mournful in the springtime; knocks
me off my even keel,
Seeing suffering around me when I have them
calves to veal.
THE OFF SIDE OF THE COW
Old Wendell Hopkins’ hired man is an absent-
minded chap,
He’ll start for a chair, and like as not set down
in some one’s lap.
I happened along where he stopped to bait his
hosses the other day,
—He’d given the hosses his luncheon pail and
was trying to eat their hay,
—A kind of a blame fool sort of a trick for even
a hired man,
But he tackled a different kind of a snag when
he fooled with Matilda Ann,
—When he fooled with Matilda Ann, by jinks,
he got it square in the neck,
And the doctors say, though live he may, he’s a
total human wreck.
He’s wrapped in batting and thinking now
Of the grief in insulting a brindle cow.
Matilda Ann gives down her milk and she
doesn’t switch her tail;
She gives ten quarts—week in, week out, and
she never kicks the pail.
She doesn’t hook and she doesn’t jump, but even
Matilda Ann
Ain’t called to stand all sorts of grief from a
dern fool hired man.
And when he stubbed to the milking-shed in
sort of a dream and tried
To make Matilda “So” and “Whoa” while he
milked on the wrong, off side,
She giv’ him a look to wilt his soul and pugged
him once with her hoof,
And I guess that at last his wits were jogged as
he slammed through the lintel roof.
He’s got a poultice on his brow
Of the size of the foot of a brindle cow.
Now study the ways of the world, my son; oh,
study the ways of life!
It’s the hustling chap that gets the cash, or the
girl he wants for a wife;
It’s the feller that spots the place to grab, when
Chance goes swinging by,
Who gets his dab in the juiciest place and the
biggest plum in the pie;
There’s always a chance to milk the world—
there’s a teat, a pail, and a stool;
There’s a place for the chap with sense and grip,
but a dangerous holt for a fool.
For while the feller that’s up to snuff drums a
merry tune in his pail,
The fool sneaks up on the left-hand side and
lands in the grave or in jail.
—It’s an awkard place, as you’ll allow,
The off-hand side of the world or a cow.
THE LYRIC OF THE BUCK-SAW
Ur-r rick, ur-r raw,
Ur-r rick, ur-r raw!
Have you buckled your back to an old buck-saw?
Have you doubled your knee on a knotty stick
And bobbed to the tune of ur-r raw, ur-r rick?
Have you sawed till your eye-balls goggled and
popped,
Till your heart seemed lead and your breath was
stopped?
Have you yeaked her up and yawked her down,
—As doleful a lad as there was in town?
If so, we can talk of the back-bent woe
That followed the youngsters of long ago.
Ah, urban chap, with your anthracite,
Pass on, for you cannot fathom, quite,
The talk that I make with this other chap
Who got no cuddling in Comfort’s lap.
You’ll scarcely follow me when I sing
Of the rasping buck-saw’s dancing spring,
For the rugged rhythm is fashioned for
The ear that remembers ur-r rick, ur-r raw.
Ur-r raw, ur-r rick.
Ur-r raw, ur-r rick!
We pecked at our mountain stick by stick.
Our dad was a man who was mighty good
In getting the women-folks lots of wood.
And as soon as sledding came on to stay
Jack got all work and he got no play.
For daily the ox-sleds creaked and crawked
Till the yard was full and the buck-saws talked.
’Twas rugged toil and we humped our backs,
But we scarce kept pace with dad’s big axe.
There were bitter mornings of “ten below,”
There were days of bluster and days of snow,
But with double mittens, a big wool scarf,
And coon-skin ear-laps, we used to laugh
At the fussiest blast old Boreas shrieked,
And the nippingest pinches Jack Frost tweaked,
We were warm as the blade of the yanking saw
That steamed to the tune of ur-r rick, ur-r raw!
Ur-r raw, ur-r rick,
Ur-r raw, ur-r rick!
Ho, men at the desks, there, dull and sick!
You slap your hands to your stiff old backs
At thought of the days of the saw and axe;
And you press your palms to an aching brow,
And shiver to think of a saw-buck now.
But ah, old fellows, you can’t deny
You hanker a bit for the times gone by,
When the toil of the tasks that filled the day
Made bright by contrast our bits of play.
Oh, grateful the hour at set of sun,
When the tea was hot, and the biscuits “done;”
When chocking his axe in the chopping-block,
Dad sung, u Knock off, boys, five o’clock.”
Now tell me truly, ye wearied men,
Are you ever as happy as you were then,
When you straightened your toil-bent, weary
backs
At the welcome plop of dad’s old axe?
And tell me truly, can you forget
The sight of the table that mother set,
When dropping the saws in the twilight gloom,
We trooped to the cheer of the dear fore-room,
And there in the red shade’s mellow light
Made feast with a grand good appetite?
—Made feast at the sweet old homespun board
On the plum preserves and the “crab jell” stored
For demands like these; and made great holes
In the heaps of the cream o’ tartar rolls?
Ah, gusto! fickle and faint above
The savory viands you used to love,
What wouldn’t you give for the sharp-set tang
That followed those days when the steel teeth
sang?
—For zest was as keen as the bright, swift saw
When you humped to the tune of ur-r rick,
ur-r raw?
MISTER KEAZLE’S EPITAPH
Foster the tinker traversed Maine
From Elkins town to Kittery Point,
With a rattling pack and a rattling brain,
And a general air of “out of joint.”
A gaunt old chap with a shambling gait,
A battered hat, and rusty clothes,
With grimy digits in sorry state,
And a smooch on the end of his big red nose.
That was the way that Foster went,
—Mixture of shrewdness and folly blent,
Mending the pots and the pans as ordered,
But leaving the leak in his nob unsoldered.
But Foster the tinker was no one’s fool;
He fired an answer every time.
’Twas either a saw or proverb or rule,
Or else a bit of home-made rhyme.
And while he knocked at a pot or a pan
And puffed the coals of his little blaze,
He was ready and primed for the jocose man
Who thought that the tinker was easy to
phase.
It chanced that Foster stopped one night
With a man who thought a master sight
Of being esteemed as smart’s a weasel
—Man by the name of Obed Keazle.
And he pronged at Foster the evening through
While the folks were having a merry laugh;
And they laughed the most when he said, “Now
you
Compose me a good nice epitaph,
And your lodging here shan’t cost a cent.”
So Foster snapped at the chance and said
He would have it ready before he went,
And would make one verse ere they went to
bed.
So Keazle listened with deep delight
While he heard the guileless chap recite,
With his head a-cock like a huge canary,
This sample of his obituary:
Thus he begun
Verse number one:
“A man there was who died of late,
Whom angels did impatient wait,
With outstretched arms and smiles of love
To bear him to the Realms Above.”
Foster the tinker slept that night
On a feather tick that was three feet thick,
And Keazle attended in calm delight
To warm the bed with a nice hot brick.
And the tinker sat at the breakfast board
And blandly smiled and ate and ate,
Then piled on his back his motley hoard
And took his stand at the front yard gate.
He said, “I’ll give ye the other half
Of that strictly fust-class epitaph.”
There are doubts you know as to how it
suited,
But the tinker didn’t wait—he scooted.
For thus ran—whew!
Verse number two:
While angels hovered in the skies
Disputing who should bear the prize,
In slipped the devil like a weasel
And Down Below he kicked old Keazle.”
PLAIN OLD KITCHEN CHAP
Mother’s furnished up the parlor—got a full,
new haircloth set,
And there ain’t a neater parlor in the county,
now, I’ll bet.
She has been a-hoarding pennies for a mighty
tedious time;
She has had the chicken money, and she’s saved
it, every dime.
And she’s put it out in pictures and in easy
chairs and rugs,
—Got the neighbors all a-sniffin’ ’cause we’re
puttin’ on such lugs.
Got up curtains round the winders, whiter’n
snow and all of lace,
Fixed that parlor till, by gracious, I should never
know the place.
And she says as soon’s it’s settled she shall give
a yaller tea.
And invite the whole caboodle of the neighbors
in to see.
Can’t own up that I approve it; seems too much
like fubb and fuss
To a man who’s lived as I have—jest a blamed
old kitchen cuss.
Course we’ve had a front room always; tidy place
enough, I guess,
Couldn’t tell, I never set there, never opened it
unless
Parson called, or sometimes mother give a party
or a bee,
When the women come and quilted and the men
dropped round to tea.
Now we’re goin’ to use it common. Mother
says it’s time to start,
If we’re any better’n heathens, so’s to sweeten
life with art.
Says I’ve grubbed too long with plain things,
haven’t lifted up my soul.
Says I’ve denned there in the kitchen like a
woodchuck in his hole.
—It’s along with other notions mother’s getting
from the club;
But I’ve got no growl a-comin’, mother ain’t let
up on grub!
Still I’m wishin’ she would let me have my
smoke and take my nap
In the corner, side the woodbox; I’m a plain old
kitchen chap.
I have done my stent at farmin’; folks will tell
you I’m no shirk;
There’s the callus on them fingers, that’s the
badge of honest work.
And them hours in the corner when I’ve stum-
bled home to rest
Have been earnt by honest labor and they’ve
been my very best.
Land! If I could have a palace wouldn’t ask no
better nook
Than this corner in the kitchen with my pipe
and some good book.
I’m a sort of dull old codger, clear behind the
times, I s’pose;
Stay at home and mind my bus’ness; wear some
pretty rusty clothes;
’Druther set out here’n the kitchen, have for
forty years or more,
Till the heel of that old rocker’s gouged a holler
in the floor;
Set my boots behind the cook stove, dry my old
blue woolen socks,
Get my knife and plug tobacker from that dented
old tin box,
Set and smoke and look at mother clearing up
the things from tea;
—Rather tame for city fellers, but that’s fun
enough for me.
I am proud of mother’s parlor, but I’m feared
the thing has put
Curi’s notions her noddle, for she says I’m
underfoot;
Thinks we oughter light the parlor, get a crowd
and ontertain,
But I ain’t no city loafer,—I’m a farmer down in
Maine.
Course I can’t hurt mother’s feelin’s, wouldn’t
do it for a mint,
Yet that parlor business sticks me, and I guess
I’ll have to hint
That I ain’t an ontertainer, and I’ll leave that
job to son;
I’ll set out here in the kitchen while the folks
are having fun.
And if marm comes out to get me, I will pull
her on my lap,
And she’ll know—and she’ll forgive me, for I’m
jest a kitchen chap.
TAKIN’ COMFORT
I wouldn’t be an emp’ror after supper’s cleared
away;
I wouldn’t be a king, suh, if I could.
So long as I’ve got health and strength, a home
where I can stay,
And a woodshed full of dry and fitted wood.
For Jimmy brings the bootjack, and mother trims
the light,
And pulls the roller curtains, shettin’ out the
stormy night.
And me and Jim and mother and the cat set
down—
Oh, who in tunket hankers for a crown?
Who wants to spend their ev’nin’s sittin’
starched and prim and straight,
A-warmin’ royal velvet on a throne?
It’s mighty tedious bus’ness settin’ up so
thund’rin’ late,
With not a minit’s time to call your own.
I’d rather take my comfort after workin’ through
the days
With my old blue woolen stockin’s nigh the
fire’s social blaze,
For me and Jim and mother and the old gray cat
Come mighty near to knowin’ where we’re at.