But sling, if ye will, all your bouquets and praise
At the cut-and-dried speakers of pod-auger days,
I’ll go by myself and I’ll tenderly crown
With bay the bald brows of old Bennington;
Feller was far as the foot of the hill in one of
And the feller gave up when he saw he was
He borrowed a chaw and consarned his luck,
He worried the people that passed, and they
It was slivered some, “and there warn’t much
’Twould bust if he pulled that feller out.”
Would have helped had he brought his heavier
“If the rigging they had was only stout.”
Feller had thought he was up a stump, when
And the feller said that he did, you bet,
But said he had begged while he’d set and set,
Who’d give him a boost with an extra span.
But it’s youm for what it’s worth, I swear.
Two shakes of a sheep’s tail I yank him out.”
And the very next thing that the feller knew
But the horse and the colt and the gay old man
Bent to the job till the clogged wheels ran,
Till the cart rolled over the tough old hill.
Then the feller begged him to take some pay,
--Grab in same’s this and help a feller.”
‘Tis the tale of Bart of Brighton--meaning
It’s the tale of Uncle Bart, sir, and his racker-
I have toned it down a little where the language
But the rest is as he told it--this remarkable
“It’s all along o’ givin’ lifts to Uncle Isr’el
--His folks don’t like him stubbin’ round the
And old Mis’ Clark has asked of folks that see
To take him in and bring him home, if ’tain’t too
The day this ’ere affair come off I’d took in
With a pail of new molasses that he hugged be-
We see old Clark ahead of us, a-lugging home
Says I to Pease, ‘Now brace yerhat: we’ll have
‘Set in behind, old Clark,’ I says. ‘Hop in be-
‘Prowidin’ these ’ere tngs don’t bust I’ll take
He piled aboard, s’r, master quick, there warn’t
And there he sot, the gun straight up, the butt
“I’ll tell you ’bout that mare of mine--the
I’ve larnt the whelp to clench her teeth, and
And when we got clus’ down to Clark’s I thought
I’d make believe we’d run away. So I com-
And old man Pease he hugged his knees and
And now, my boy, purraps you think that turn-
He hugged his gun, did Uncle Clark, and set and
While I kep’ nudgin’ Uncle Pease and bellered,
“I larfed, suh, like a lunytick, I larfed and
To look around and see old Clark a-hangin’ to