The Poetry Corner

Luke

By Bret Harte (Francis)

Wots that youre 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 youre thin ez a knife. Look at me clar two hundred and never read one in my life! Thats my opinion o novels. And ez to their lyin round here, They belong to the Jedges 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 thats whats 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 wasnt my kind no way! Speakin o gals, dye mind that house ez you rise the hill, A mile and a half from Whites, and jist above Mattinglys mill? You do? Well now thars a gal! What! you saw her? Oh, come now, thar! quit! She was only bedevlin you boys, for to me she dont cotton one bit. Now shes what I call a gal ez pretty and plump ez a quail; Teeth ez white ez a hounds, and theyd 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, its jist like her sass, for shes 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 shouldnt 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 warnt 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 hadnt 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 doesnt live ez kin use; And slippers you see em down yer ez would cradle an Injins 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 warnt 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 Id 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! Youve 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 well 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 youll 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 mightnt 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!