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Read Ebook: Pine Tree Ballads: Rhymed Stories of Unplaned Human Natur' up in Maine by Day Holman
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Ebook has 3462 lines and 143691 words, and 70 pages
PINE TREE BALLADS
Rhymed Stories of Unplaned Human Natur' Up in Maine
Boston: Small, Maynard & Company
TO THE HONORABLE 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
FOREWORD
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" and "John W. Jones" are character studies that will appeal to those who are acquainted with Maine rural life.
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
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