Up in Maine: Stories of Yankee Life Told in Verse. Holman Day
wink,
While old Benjy started in, sir, almost ’fore
you’d time to think:
“Here you see the petty lawyer leanin’ on his
corkscrew cane.
Sartin parties call him Gander, other people call
him Crane.
Though he’s faowl, it’s someways daoubtful
what he is, my friends, but still
You can tell there’s hawk about him by the
gaul-durned qritter’s bill.”
Crane got mad, he wanted money, but the crowd
let on to roar,
And they laughed the blamed old skinflint right
square out the gros’ry store.
“PLUG”
For sixty years he had borne the name
Of “Plug”—plain “Plug.”
Those many years had his village fame
Published the shame of his old-time game,
Till all the folks by custom came
To call him “Plug.”
And so many years at last went by
They hardly knew the reason why;
At least they never stopped to think,
And dropped the old suggestive wink.
And he took the name quite matter-of-fact,
Till most of the folks had forgot his act;
But sometimes a stranger’d wonder at
The why of a nickname such as that,
—Of “Plug”—just “Plug.”
Then some old chap would shift his quid
And tell the story of what he did.
“He owned ten acres of punkin pine,
’Twas straight and tall, and there warn’t a sign
But what ’twas sound as a hickory nut,
And at last he got the price he sut.
They hired him for to chop it down.
He did.—By gosh, it was all unsoun’.
Was a rotten heart in every tree.
But there warn’t none there but him to see.
And quick as ever a tree was cut,
He hewed a saplin’ and plugged the butt.
—Plugged the butt, sir, and hid away
For about two months, for he’d got his pay.
But there warn’t no legal actions took,
They never tackled his pocket-book.
’Twould a-broke his heart, for he’s dretful snug;
But he never squirmed when they called him
’Plug.’
And over the whole of the country-side,
Up to the day that the critter died,
’Twas ‘Plug.’
Till some of the young folks scurcely knew
Which was the nickname, which was the true.
He left five thousand—putty rich—
But better less cash than a title sich
As ‘Plug.’ ”
THE SONG OF THE HARROW AND PLOW
From the acres of Aroostook, broad and mellow
in the sun,
Down to rocky York, the chorus of the farmers
has begun.
They are riding in Aroostook on a patent sulky
plow,
—They are riding, taking comfort, for they’ve
learned the secret how.
They are planting their potatoes with a whirring
new machine,
—Driver sits beneath an awning; slickest thing
you’ve ever seen.
There is not a rock to vex ’em in the acres
spreading wide,
So they sit upon a cushion, cock their legs, and
smoke and ride.
Gee and Bright go lurching onward in the
furrow’s mellow steam;
Over there, with clank of whiffle, tugs a sturdy
Morgan team.
And the man who rides the planter or who plods
the broken earth
Joins and swells the mighty chorus of the
season’s budding mirth.
And they’ve pitched the tune to a jubilant
strain.
They are lilting it merrily now.
We wait for that melody up here in Maine,
—’Tis the song of the harrow and plow.
They are picking rocks in Oxford, and in Waldo
blasting ledge,
And they’re farming down in Lincoln on their
acres set on edge.
Down among the kitchen gardens of the slopes
of Cumberland
They’re sticking in the garden sass as thick as
it will stand.
And every nose is sniffing at the scent of fur-
rowed earth,
And every man is living all of life at what it’s
worth.
Though the farmer in Aroostook sails across a
velvet field,
And his mellow, crumbly acres vomit forth a
spendthrift yield,
All the rest are just as cheerful on their hillside
farms as he,
For there’s cosy wealth in gardens and a fortune
in a tree.
So they’re singing the song of the coming
of Spring,
And the song of the empty mow;
Of