Thet drive me, when I git a chance, to walk

Off by myself to hev a privit talk With a queer critter thet can't seem to 'gree

Along o' me like most folks, Mister Me.

Ther' is times when I'm unsoshle ez a stone,

An' sort o' suffocate to be alone, I'm crowded jes' to think thet folks are nigh,

An' can't bear nothin' closer than the sky;

Now the wind's full ez shifty in the mind

Ez wut it is ou'-doors, ef I ain't blind,

An, sometimes, in the fairest sou'west weather,

My inward vane pints east for weeks together,

My natur' gits all goose-flesh, an' my sins Come drizzlin' on

my conscience

sharp ez pins: Wal, et sech times I jes' slip out o' sight,

An' take it out in a fair stan' up fight With the one cuss I can't lay on the shelf,

The crook'dest stick in all the heap, myself.

'Twuz so las' Sabbath arter meetin'time:

Findin' my feelin's wouldn't noways rhyme

With nobody's, but off the hendle flew

An' took things from an east-wind

pint o' view,

I started off to lose me in the hills Where the pines be, up back o' Siah's Mills:

Pines, ef you're blue, are the best friends I know,

They mope an' sigh an' sheer your feelin's so,

They hesh the ground beneath so, tu, I swan,

You half-forgit you've gut a body on. Ther's a small skool'us' there where four roads meet,

The door-steps hollered out by little feet,

An' side-post carved with names whose owners grew

Thinkin' o' nothin', I've heerd ole

folks say,

Is a hard kind o' dooty in its way: It's thinkin' every thin' you ever knew,

Or ever hearn, to make your feelins blue.

I sot there tryin' thet on for a spell: I thought o' the Rebellion, then o' Hell,

Which some folks tell ye now is jes' a metterfor,

(A the'ry, p'raps, it wun't feel none the better for);

I thought o' Reconstruction, wut we'd win

Patchin' our patent self-blow-up agin:

I thought ef this 'ere milkin' o' the wits,

So

much a month, warn't givin' Natur' fits,

Ef folks warn't druv, findin' their own milk fail,

To work the cow thet hes an iron tail, An' ef idees 'thout ripenin' in the

Though mos' folks write ez ef they hoped jes' quickenin'

The churn would argoo skim-milk into thickenin';

But skim-milk ain't

change its view

a thing to

O' wut it's meant for more'n a smoky flue.

But du pray tell me, 'fore we furder go,

How in all Natur' did you come to know

'Bout our affairs," sez I, "in Kingdom Come?".

"Wal, I worked round at sperritrappin' some,

An' danced the tables till their legs wuz gone,

In hopes o larnin' wut wuz goin' on,"

Sez he, "but mejums lie so like allsplit

Thet I concluded it wuz best to quit. But, come now, ef you wun't confess to knowin',

We hain't to punish only, but to keep,

An' the cure's gut to go a cent'ry deep."

"Wal, milk-an'-water ain't the best o' glue,"

Sez he, "an' so you'll find before you're thru;

Ef reshness venters sunthin', shillyshally

Lozes ez often wut's ten times the vally.

Thet exe of ourn, when Charles's neck gut split,

Opened a gap thet ain't bridged over yit:

Slav'ry's your Charles, the Lord hez gin the exe"

"Our Charles,"

sez I, "hez gut eight million necks.

The hardest question ain't the black man's right,

The trouble is to 'mancipate the white;

One's chained in body an' can be sot free,

But t'other's chained in soul to an idee:

It's a long job, but we shall worry thru it;

Ef bag'nets fail, the spellin'-book must du it."

"Hosee,' sez he, "I think you're goin' to fail:

The rettlesnake ain't dangerous in the tail;

This 'ere rebellion's nothin' but the rettle,

You think thet's ellerkence, - I call it shoddy,

-

A thing," sez I, "wun't cover soul nor body;

An'

I like the plain all-wool o' common

sense,

Thet warms ye now, an' will a twelvemonth hence.

You took to follerin' where the Prophets beckoned,

An,' fust you knowed on, back come Charles the Second;

Now wut I want's to hev all we gain stick,

An' not to start Millennium too

quick;

cresh it suddin, or you'll larn by waitin'

Thet Chance wun't stop to listen to debatin'!

"God's truth!" sez I,-"an' ef I

held the club,