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FARM LEGENDS.




[Illustration:

  "THEY STOOD IN THE SHADE OF THE WESTERN DOOR."      _Page 32._]




  FARM LEGENDS

  BY WILL CARLETON

  AUTHOR OF "FARM BALLADS"

  _ILLUSTRATED_

  [Illustration: Colophon]

  NEW YORK
  HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS

  FRANKLIN SQUARE




  Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by

  HARPER & BROTHERS,

  In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.


  Copyright, 1887, by HARPER & BROTHERS.




  TO
  THE MEMORY OF A NOBLEMAN,
  MY
  FARMER FATHER.




PREFACE.


The "Farm Ballads" have met with so kind and general a reception as to
encourage the publishing of a companion volume.

In this book, also, the author has aimed to give expression to the
truth, that with every person, even if humble or debased, there may
be some good, worth lifting up and saving; that in each human being,
though revered and seemingly immaculate, are some faults which deserve
pointing out and correcting; and that all circumstances of life,
however trivial they appear, may possess those alternations of the
comic and pathetic, the good and bad, the joyful and sorrowful, upon
which walk the days and nights, the summers and winters, the lives and
deaths, of this strange world.

He would take this occasion to give a word of thanks to those who have
staid with him through evil and good report; who have overlooked his
literary faults for the sake of the truths he was struggling to tell;
and who have believed--what he knows--that he is honest.

With these few words of introduction, the author launches this second
bark upon the sea of popular opinion; grinds his axe, and enters once
more the great forest of Human Nature, for timber to go on with his
boat-building.

  W.C.




CONTENTS.


  _FARM LEGENDS:_                     PAGE

  _The School-master's Guests._         17

  _Three Links of a Life._              26

  _Rob, the Pauper._                    40

  _The Three Lovers._                   51

  _The Song of Home._                   63

  _Paul's run off with the Show._       69

  _The Key to Thomas' Heart._           73

  _The Doctor's Story._                 76

  _The Christmas Baby._                 80


  _DECORATION-DAY POEMS:_

  _Cover Them Over._                    87

  _The Loves of the Nations._           92


  _COLLEGE POEMS:_

  _Rifts in the Cloud._                103

  _Brothers and Friends._              113

  _Our March through the Past._        121

  _That Day we Graduated._             131


  _POEMS OF SORROW AND DEATH:_

  _The Burning of Chicago._            137

  _The Railroad Holocaust._            145

  _Ship "City of Boston"._             147

  _Gone Before._                       149

  _The Little Sleeper._                151

  _'Tis Snowing._                      153


  _POEMS OF HOPE:_

  _Some Time._                         157

  _The Good of the Future._            160

  _The Joys that are Left._            161

  _When my Ship went Down._            163

  _To the Carleton Circle._            164


  _THE SANCTUM KING._                  169


  _STRAY STANZAS:_

  _Lines to James Russell Lowell._     185

  _To Monsieur Pasteur._               185

  _To a Young Lady._                   186

  _Death of the Richest Man._          186

  _To the Smothered Miners._           186

  _The Deathless Song._                187

  _On a "Poet"-Critic._                187


[Illustration]




ILLUSTRATIONS.


                                                            PAGE

  "_They stood in the Shade of the western Door_"   Frontispiece

  "_A Class in the Front, with their Readers,
  were telling, with difficult Pains_"                        19

  "_And nodded obliquely, and muttered, 'Them 'ere
  is my Sentiments tew'_"                                     23

  "_When grave Baw Beese, the Indian Chief, had beaded
  the Neck of the pale-face Miss_"                            27

  "_Hiding e'en from the Dark his Face_"                      35

  "_E'en in your Desolation you are not quite unblest_"       37

  "_Himself on the Door-stone idly sitting_"                  41

  "_He runs and stumbles, leaps and clambers_"                45

  _Rob, the Pauper_                                           50

  "_And Bess said, 'Keep still, for there's Plenty of Room'_" 55

  "_Several Times he, with Policy stern, repressed a
  Desire to break out of the Churn_"                          57

  "_And there his plump Limbs through the Orifice swung_"     59

  "_Alice, the country Maiden, with the sweet loving Face_"   65

  "_My Boy! come in! come in!_"                               71

  "_The Mother, who carries the Key to Thomas' Heart_"        74

  "_I threw them as far as I could throw_"                    78

  _The Christmas Baby_                            80, 81, 82, 83

  "_They who in Mountain and Hill-side and Dell_"             90

  "_And does Columbia love_ her _dead_?"                      93

  "_When a Man throws the Treasures of his Life_"             97

  "_E'en when was fixed, with far-resounding strokes_"       109

  "_How happy are We!_"                                      119

  "_'Twas a bright, glorious March! full of Joys
  that were New_"                                            123

  "_And loudly wild Accents of Terror came pealing from
  Thousands of Throats_"                                     141

  _Ship "City of Boston"_                                    147

  _Some Time_                                                157

  "_With the World, Flesh, and--Lad of General Work_"        171

  "_The Public Heart's Prime-ministers are We_"              179

[Illustration]




FARM LEGENDS.




FARM LEGENDS.




THE SCHOOL-MASTER'S GUESTS.


I.

  The district school-master was sitting behind his great book-laden
  desk,
  Close-watching the motions of scholars, pathetic and gay and
  grotesque.

  As whisper the half-leafless branches, when Autumn's brisk breezes
  have come,
  His little scrub-thicket of pupils sent upward a half-smothered hum;

  Like the frequent sharp bang of a wagon, when treading a forest
  path o'er,
  Resounded the feet of his pupils, whenever their heels struck the
  floor.

  There was little Tom Timms on the front seat, whose face was
  withstanding a drouth;
  And jolly Jack Gibbs just behind him, with a rainy new moon for a
  mouth;

  There were both of the Smith boys, as studious as if they bore names
  that could bloom:
  And Jim Jones, a heaven-built mechanic, the slyest young knave in the
  room:

  With a countenance grave as a horse's, and his honest eyes fixed on a
  pin,
  Queer-bent on a deeply laid project to tunnel Joe Hawkins's skin.

  There were anxious young novices, drilling their spelling-books into
  the brain,
  Loud-puffing each half-whispered letter, like an engine just starting
  a train.

  There was one fiercely muscular fellow, who scowled at the sums on his
  slate,
  And leered at the innocent figures a look of unspeakable hate,

  And set his white teeth close together, and gave his thin lips a short
  twist,
  As to say, "I could whip you, confound you! if sums could be done with
  my fist!"

  There were two pretty girls in the corner, each one with some cunning
  possessed,
  In a whisper discussing a problem: which one the young master liked
  best!

  A class in the front, with their readers, were telling, with difficult
  pains,
  How perished brave Marco Bozzaris while bleeding at all of his veins;

  And a boy on the floor to be punished, a statue of idleness stood,
  Making faces at all of the others, and enjoying the task all he could.


II.

  Around were the walls, gray and dingy, which every old school-sanctum
  hath,
  With many a break on their surface, where grinned a wood-grating of
  lath;

  A patch of thick plaster, just over the school-master's rickety chair,
  Seemed threat'ningly o'er him suspended, like Damocles' sword, by a
  hair;

  There were tracks on the desks where the knife-blades had wandered in
  search of their prey;
  Their tops were as duskily spattered as if they drank ink every day;

[Illustration:

  "A CLASS IN THE FRONT, WITH THEIR READERS, WERE TELLING, WITH
  DIFFICULT PAINS, HOW PERISHED BRAVE MARCO BOZZARIS WHILE BLEEDING AT
  ALL OF HIS VEINS."]

  The square stove it puffed and it thundered, and broke out in
  red-flaming sores,
  Till the great iron quadruped trembled like a dog fierce to rush
  out-o'-doors;

  White snow-flakes looked in at the windows; the gale pressed its lips
  to the cracks;
  And the children's hot faces were streaming, the while they were
  freezing their backs.


III.

  Now Marco Bozzaris had fallen, and all of his suff'rings were o'er,
  And the class to their seats were retreating, when footsteps were
  heard at the door;

  And five of the good district fathers marched into the room in a row,
  And stood themselves up by the hot fire, and shook off their white
  cloaks of snow;

  And the spokesman, a grave squire of sixty, with countenance solemnly
  sad,
  Spoke thus, while the children all listened, with all of the ears that
  they had:

  "We've come here, school-master, intendin' to cast an inquirin' eye
  'round,
  Concarnin' complaints that's