Spoon River Anthology Part 12

But somehow I was lost, Though really keeping the road.

Then I reeled through a gate and into a yard, And called at the top of my voice: "Oh, Fiddler! Oh, Mr. Jones!"

(I thought it was his house and he would show me the way home. ) But who should step out but A. D. Blood, In his night shirt, waving a stick of wood, And roaring about the cursed saloons, And the criminals they made?

"You drunken Oscar Hummel", he said, As I stood there weaving to and fro, Taking the blows from the stick in his hand Till I dropped down dead at his feet.

Josiah Tompkins

I WAS well known and much beloved And rich, as fortunes are reckoned In Spoon River, where I had lived and worked.

That was the home for me, Though all my children had flown afar-- Which is the way of Nature--all but one.

The boy, who was the baby, stayed at home, To be my help in my failing years And the solace of his mother.

But I grew weaker, as he grew stronger, And he quarreled with me about the business, And his wife said I was a hindrance to it; And he won his mother to see as he did, Till they tore me up to be transplanted With them to her girlhood home in Missouri.

And so much of my fortune was gone at last, Though I made the will just as he drew it, He profited little by it.

Roscoe Purkapile

SHE loved me.

Oh! how she loved me I never had a chance to escape From the day she first saw me.

But then after we were married I thought She might prove her mortality and let me out, Or she might divorce me. But few die, none resign.

Then I ran away and was gone a year on a lark.

But she never complained. She said all would be well That I would return. And I did return.

I told her that while taking a row in a boat I had been captured near Van Buren Street By pirates on Lake Michigan, And kept in chains, so I could not write her.

She cried and kissed me, and said it was cruel, Outrageous, inhuman! I then concluded our marriage Was a divine dispensation And could not be dissolved, Except by death.

I was right.

Mrs. Purkapile

HE ran away and was gone for a year.

When he came home he told me the silly story Of being kidnapped by pirates on Lake Michigan And kept in chains so he could not write me.

I pretended to believe it, though I knew very well What he was doing, and that he met The milliner, Mrs. Williams, now and then When she went to the city to buy goods, as she said.

But a promise is a promise And marriage is marriage, And out of respect for my own character I refused to be drawn into a divorce By the scheme of a husband who had merely grown tired Of his marital vow and duty.

Mrs. Kessler

MR. KESSLER, you know, was in the army, And he drew six dollars a month as a pension, And stood on the corner talking politics, Or sat at home reading Grant's Memoirs; And I supported the family by washing, Learning the secrets of all the people From their curtains, counterpanes, shirts and skirts.

For things that are new grow old at length, They're replaced with better or none at all: People are prospering or falling back.

And rents and patches widen with time; No thread or needle can pace decay, And there are stains that baffle soap, And there are colors that run in spite of you, Blamed though you are for spoiling a dress.

Handkerchiefs, napery, have their secrets-- The laundress, Life, knows all about it.

And I, who went to all the funerals Held in Spoon River, swear I never Saw a dead face without thinking it looked Like something washed and ironed.

Harmon Whitney

OUT of the lights and roar of cities, Drifting down like a spark in Spoon River, Burnt out with the fire of drink, and broken, The paramour of a woman I took in self-contempt, But to hide a wounded pride as well.

To be judged and loathed by a village of little minds-- I, gifted with tongues and wisdom, Sunk here to the dust of the justice court, A picker of rags in the rubbage of spites and wrongs,-- I, whom fortune smiled on!

I in a village, Spouting to gaping yokels pages of verse, Out of the lore of golden years, Or raising a laugh with a flash of filthy wit When they bought the drinks to kindle my dying mind.

To be judged by you, The soul of me hidden from you, With its wound gangrened By love for a wife who made the wound, With her cold white bosom, treasonous, pure and hard, Relentless to the last, when the touch of her hand, At any time, might have cured me of the typhus, Caught in the jungle of life where many are lost.

And only to think that my soul could not react, Like Byron's did, in song, in something n.o.ble, But turned on itself like a tortured snake--judge me this way, O world.

Bert Kessler

I WINGED my bird, Though he flew toward the setting sun; But just as the shot rang out, he soared Up and up through the splinters of golden light, Till he turned right over, feathers ruffled, With some of the down of him floating near, And fell like a plummet into the gra.s.s.

I tramped about, parting the tangles, Till I saw a splash of blood on a stump, And the quail lying close to the rotten roots.

I reached my hand, but saw no brier, But something p.r.i.c.ked and stung and numbed it.

And then, in a second, I spied the rattler-- The shutters wide in his yellow eyes, The head of him arched, sunk back in the rings of him, A circle of filth, the color of ashes, Or oak leaves bleached under layers of leaves.

I stood like a stone as he shrank and uncoiled And started to crawl beneath the stump, When I fell limp in the gra.s.s.

Lambert Hutchins

I HAVE two monuments besides this granite obelisk: One, the house I built on the hill, With its spires, bay windows, and roof of slate.

The other, the lake-front in Chicago, Where the railroad keeps a switching yard, With whistling engines and crunching wheels And smoke and soot thrown over the city, And the crash of cars along the boulevard,-- A blot like a hog-pen on the harbor Of a great metropolis, foul as a sty.

I helped to give this heritage To generations yet unborn, with my vote In the House of Representatives, And the lure of the thing was to be at rest From the never--ending fright of need, And to give my daughters gentle breeding, And a sense of security in life.

But, you see, though I had the mansion house And traveling pa.s.ses and local distinction, I could hear the whispers, whispers, whispers, Wherever I went, and my daughters grew up With a look as if some one were about to strike them; And they married madly, helter-skelter, Just to get out and have a change.

And what was the whole of the business worth?

Why, it wasn't worth a d.a.m.n!

Lillian Stewart

I WAS the daughter of Lambert Hutchins, Born in a cottage near the grist--mill, Reared in the mansion there on the hill, With its spires, bay--windows, and roof of slate.

How proud my mother was of the mansion How proud of father's rise in the world!

And how my father loved and watched us, And guarded our happiness.

But I believe the house was a curse, For father's fortune was little beside it; And when my husband found he had married A girl who was really poor, He taunted me with the spires, And called the house a fraud on the world, A treacherous lure to young men, raising hopes Of a dowry not to be had; And a man while selling his vote Should get enough from the people's betrayal To wall the whole of his family in.

He vexed my life till I went back home And lived like an old maid till I died, Keeping house for father.

Hortense Robbins

MY name used to be in the papers daily As having dined somewhere, Or traveled somewhere, Or rented a house in Paris, Where I entertained the n.o.bility.

I was forever eating or traveling, Or taking the cure at Baden-Baden.

Now I am here to do honor To Spoon River, here beside the family whence I sprang.

No one cares now where I dined, Or lived, or whom I entertained, Or how often I took the cure at Baden-Baden.

Jacob G.o.dbey