(IN THE COLORADO PARK, 1873)
Wot's that you're readin'?--a novel? A novel!--well, darn my skin!
You a man grown and bearded and histin' such stuff ez that in--
Stuff about gals and their sweethearts! No wonder you're thin ez a
knife.
Look at me--clar two hundred--and never read one in my life!
That's my opinion o' novels. And ez to their lyin' round here,
They belong to the Jedge's daughter--the Jedge who came up last year
On account of his lungs and the mountains and the balsam o' pine and
fir;
And his daughter--well, she read novels, and that's what's the
matter with her.
Yet she was sweet on the Jedge, and stuck by him day and night,
Alone in the cabin up 'yer--till she grew like a ghost, all white.
She wus only a slip of a thing, ez light and ez up and away
Ez rifle smoke blown through the woods, but she wasn't my kind--no
way!
Speakin' o' gals, d'ye mind that house ez you rise the hill,
A mile and a half from White's, and jist above Mattingly's mill?
You do? Well now THAR's a gal! What! you saw her? Oh, come now,
thar! quit!
She was only bedevlin' you boys, for to me she don't cotton one bit.
Now she's what I call a gal--ez pretty and plump ez a quail;
Teeth ez white ez a hound's, and they'd go through a ten-penny nail;
Eyes that kin snap like a cap. So she asked to know 'whar I was hid?'
She did! Oh, it's jist like her sass, for she's peart ez a Katydid.
But what was I talking of?--Oh! the Jedge and his daughter--she read
Novels the whole day long, and I reckon she read them abed;
And sometimes she read them out loud to the Jedge on the porch where
he sat,
And 'twas how 'Lord Augustus' said this, and how 'Lady Blanche' she
said that.
But the sickest of all that I heerd was a yarn thet they read 'bout
a chap,
'Leather-stocking' by name, and a hunter chock full o' the greenest
o' sap;
And they asked me to hear, but I says, 'Miss Mabel, not any for me;
When I likes I kin sling my own lies, and thet chap and I shouldn't
agree.'
Yet somehow or other that gal allus said that I brought her to mind
Of folks about whom she had read, or suthin belike of thet kind,
And thar warn't no end o' the names that she give me thet summer up
here--
'Robin Hood,' 'Leather-stocking' 'Rob Roy,'--Oh, I tell you, the
critter was queer!
And yet, ef she hadn't been spiled, she was harmless enough in her
way;
She could jabber in French to her dad, and they said that she knew
how to play;
And she worked me that shot-pouch up thar, which the man doesn't
live ez kin use;
And slippers--you see 'em down 'yer--ez would cradle an Injin's
papoose.
Yet along o' them novels, you see, she was wastin' and mopin' away,
And then she got shy with her tongue, and at last she had nothin' to
say;
And whenever I happened around, her face it was hid by a book,
And it warn't till the day she left that she give me ez much ez a
look.
And this was the way it was. It was night when I kem up here
To say to 'em all 'good-by,' for I reckoned to go for deer
At 'sun up' the day they left. So I shook 'em all round by the hand,
'Cept Mabel, and she was sick, ez they give me to understand.
But jist ez I passed the house next morning at dawn, some one,
Like a little waver o' mist got up on the hill with the sun;
Miss Mabel it was, alone--all wrapped in a mantle o' lace--
And she stood there straight in the road, with a touch o' the sun in
her face.
And she looked me right in the eye--I'd seen suthin' like it before
When I hunted a wounded doe to the edge o' the Clear Lake Shore,
And I had my knee on its neck, and I jist was raisin' my knife,
When it give me a look like that, and--well, it got off with its life.
'We are going to-day,' she said, 'and I thought I would say good-by
To you in your own house, Luke--these woods and the bright blue sky!
You've always been kind to us, Luke, and papa has found you still
As good as the air he breathes, and wholesome as Laurel Tree Hill.
'And we'll always think of you, Luke, as the thing we could not take
away,--
The balsam that dwells in the woods, the rainbow that lives in the
spray.
And you'll sometimes think of ME, Luke, as you know you once used to
say,
A rifle smoke blown through the woods, a moment, but never to stay.'
And then we shook hands. She turned, but a-suddent she tottered and
fell,
And I caught her sharp by the waist, and held her a minit. Well,
It was only a minit, you know, thet ez cold and ez white she lay
Ez a snowflake here on my breast, and then--well, she melted away--
And was gone. . . . And thar are her books; but I says not any for me;
Good enough may be for some, but them and I mightn't agree.
They spiled a decent gal ez might hev made some chap a wife,
And look at me!--clar two hundred--and never read one in my life!
Her Last Letter: Being A Reply To 'His Answer'
June 4th! Do you know what that date means?
June 4th! By this air and these pines!
Well,--only you know how I hate scenes,--
These might be my very last lines!
For perhaps, sir, you'll kindly remember--
If some OTHER things you've forgot--
That you last wrote the 4th of DECEMBER,--
Just six months ago I--from this spot;
From this spot, that you said was 'the fairest
For once being held in my thought.'
Now, really I call that the barest
Of--well, I won't say what I ought!
For here I am back from my 'riches,'
My 'triumphs,' my 'tours,' and all that;
And YOU'RE not to be found in the ditches
Or temples of Poverty Flat!
From Paris we went for the season
To London, when pa wired, 'Stop.'
Mama says 'his HEALTH' was the reason.
(I've heard that some things took a 'drop.')
But she said if my patience I'd summon
I could go back with him to the Flat--
Perhaps I was thinking of some one
Who of me--well--was not thinking THAT!
Of course you will SAY that I 'never
Replied to the letter you wrote.'
That is just like a man! But, however,
I read it--or how could I quote?
And as to the stories you've heard (No,
Don't tell me you haven't--I know!),
You'll not believe one blessed word, Joe;
But just whence they came, let them go!
And they came from Sade Lotski of Yolo,
Whose father sold clothes on the Bar--
You called him Job-lotski, you know, Joe,
And the boys said HER value was par.
Well, we met her in Paris--just flaring
With diamonds, and lost in a hat
And she asked me 'how Joseph was faring
In his love-suit on Poverty Flat!'
She thought it would shame me! I met her
With a look, Joe, that made her eyes drop;
And I said that your 'love-suit fared better
Than any suit out of THEIR shop!'
And I didn't blush THEN--as I'm doing
To find myself here, all alone,
And left, Joe, to do all the 'sueing'
To a lover that's certainly flown.
In this brand-new hotel, called 'The Lily'
(I wonder who gave it that name?)
I really am feeling quite silly,
To think I was once called the same;
And I stare from its windows, and fancy
I'm labeled to each passer-by.
Ah! gone is the old necromancy,
For nothing seems right to my eye.
On that hill there are stores that I knew not;
There's a street--where I once lost my way;
And the copse where you once tied my shoe-knot
Is shamelessly open as day!
And that bank by the spring--I once drank there,
And you called the place Eden, you know;
Now I'm banished like Eve--though the bank there
Is belonging to 'Adams and Co.'
There's the rustle of silk on the sidewalk;
Just now there passed by a tall hat;
But there's gloom in this 'boom' and this wild talk
Of the 'future' of Poverty Flat.
There's a decorous chill in the air, Joe,
Where once we were simple and free;
And I hear they've been making a mayor, Joe,
Of the man who shot Sandy McGee.
But there's still the 'lap, lap' of the river;
There's the song of the pines, deep and low.
(How my longing for them made me quiver
In the park that they call Fontainebleau!)
There's the snow-peak that looked on our dances,
And blushed when the morning said, 'Go!'
There's a lot that remains which one fancies--
But somehow there's never a Joe!
Perhaps, on the whole, it is better,
For you might have been changed like the rest;
Though it's strange that I'm trusting this letter
To papa, just to have it addressed.
He thinks he may find you, and really
Seems kinder now I'm all alone.
You might have been here, Joe, if merely
To LOOK what I'm willing to OWN.
Well, well! that's all past; so good-night, Joe;
Good-night to the river and Flat;
Good-night to what's wrong and what's right, Joe;
Good-night to the past, and all that--
To Harrison's barn, and its dancers;
To the moon, and the white peak of snow;
And good-night to the canyon that answers
My 'Joe!' with its echo of 'No!'
P. S.
I've just got your note. You deceiver!
How dared you--how COULD you? Oh, Joe!
To think I've been kept a believer
In things that were six months ago!
And it's YOU'VE built this house, and the bank, too,
And the mills, and the stores, and all that!
And for everything changed I must thank YOU,
Who have 'struck it' on Poverty Flat!
How dared you get rich--you great stupid!--
Like papa, and some men that I know,
Instead of just trusting to Cupid
And to me for your money? Ah, Joe!
Just to think you sent never a word, dear,
Till you wrote to papa for consent!
Now I know why they had me transferred here,
And 'the health of papa'--what THAT meant!
Now I know why they call this 'The Lily;'
Why the man who shot Sandy McGee
You made mayor! 'Twas because--oh, you silly!--
He once 'went down the middle' with me!
I've been fooled to the top of my bent here,
So come, and ask pardon--you know
That you've still got to get MY consent, dear!
And just think what that echo said--Joe!
