Up in Maine: Stories of Yankee Life Told in Verse. Holman Day
—’Tis the song of the harrow and plow.
HOORAY FOR THE SEASON OF FAIRS
This is the season for fairs, by gosh, oh, this is
the season for fairs;
They’re thicker than spatter,
But what does it matter?
They scoop up the cash, but who cares?
From now till October they’ll swallow the
change,
These state fairs and town fairs and county and
grange,
But apples blush brighter arrayed on a plate,
And the cattle look scrumptious in dignified
state,
Enthroned in a stall and a-gazing with scorn
On the chaps going by without ribbon or horn.
And the trotters and nags of the blood-royal
strain
Are a-furnishing fun for the people of Maine;
While prouder than princes they prance to the
band,
And ogle the ladies arrayed on the stand.
Ah, every exhibit in stall or in hall,
From hooked rug to hossflesh and punkin and
all,
Takes on a new meaning, assumes a new light,
And is, for the moment, a wonderful sight.
And people hang over the stuff that’s displayed,
They swig up whole barrels of red lemonade,
And hark to the fakirs and tumble to snides,
And treat all the young ones to merry-go rides.
They sit on the grand stand, man crushed
against man,
All shouting acclaim to the track’s rataplan;
And all the delight is as fresh and as bright
As though the big crowd had not seen that same
sight.
And the people flock home with the dust in their
eyes,
But with hearts all a-fire with fun and surprise.
The girls are a-humming the tune of the band,
And dads are relating the sights from the stand;
The dames are discussing the fancy work part,
While bub hugs the Midway scenes close to his
heart.
The palms of the men folks still glow from a
grip,
And the women are thinking of lip pressed to
lip,
For all of the folks in the loud, happy throng
Have met with the friends “they’ve not seen
for so long.”
A hail and salute from the press of the mass,
Too brief, as the crowd jammed impatient to
pass,
A moment—that’s all—to renew the old tie,
A handgrasp, a lip-touch, “Hello,” and “Good-
by.”
Oh, this is the season of fairs, by gosh, the
season to lay off your cares,
Each fair is a wonder,
They’re thicker than thunder.
Hooray for the season of fairs!
HAD A SET OF DOUBLE TEETH
Oh, listen while I tell to you a truthful little
tale
Of a man whose teeth was double all the solid
way around;
He could jest as slick as preachin’ bite in two a
shingle nail,
Or squonch a moulded bullet, sah, and ev’ry
tooth was sound.
I’ve seen him lift a kag of pork, a-bitin’ on the
chine,
And he’d clench a rope and hang there like a
puppy to a root;
And a feller he could pull and twitch and yank
upon the line,
But he couldn’t do no bus’ness with tha’
double-toothed galoot.
He was luggin’ up some shingles—bunch, sah,
underneath each arm—
The time that he was shinglin’ of the Baptist
meetin’-house;
The ladder cracked and buckled, but he didn’t
think no harm,
When all at once she busted and he started
down kersouse.
His head, sah, when she busted, it was jest
abreast the eaves;
And he nipped, sah, quicker’n lightnin’, and
he gripped there with his teeth,
And he never dropped the shingles, but he hung
to both the sheaves,
Though the solid ground was suttinly more’n
thirty feet beneath.
He held there and he kicked there and he
squirmed, but no one come.
He was workin’ on the roof alone—there
warn’t no folks around.
He hung like death to niggers till his jaws was
set and numb,
And he reely thought he’d have to drop them
shingles on the ground.
But all at once old Skillins come a-toddlin’ down
the