Читать книгу Up in Maine: Stories of Yankee Life Told in Verse - Holman Day - Страница 8

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Old Bill Boggs is always sayin’ that he’d like to

but he carn’t;

He hain’t never had no chances, he hain’t never

got no slarnt.

Says it’s all dum foolish tryin’, ’less ye git the

proper start,

Says he’s never seed no op’nin’ so he’s never

had no heart.

But he’s chawed enough tobacker for to fill a

hogset up

And has spent his time a-trainin’ some all-fired

kind of pup;

While his wife has took in washin’ and his chil-

dren hain’t been larnt

’Cause old Boggs is allus whinin’ that he’s never

got no slarnt.

Them air young uns round the gros’ry hadn’t

oughter done the thing!

Now it’s done, though, and it’s over, ’twas a

cracker-jack, by jing.

Boggs, ye see, has been a-settin’ twenty years on

one old plank,

One end h’isted on a saw hoss, t’other on the

cistern tank.

T’other night he was a-chawin’ and he says, “I

vum-spt-ooo—

Here I am a-owin’ money—not a gol durn thing

to do!

’Tain’t no use er backin’ chances, ner er fightin’

back at Luck,

—Less ye have some way er startin’, feller’s

sartin to be stuck.

Needs a slarnt to git yer going”—then them

young uns give a carnt,

—Plank went up an’ down old Boggs went—

yas, he got it, got his slarnt.

Course the young uns shouldn’t done it—sent

mine off along to bed—

Helped to pry Boggs out the cistern—he warn’t

more’n three-quarters dead.

Didn’t no one ’prove the actions, but when all

them kids was gone,

Thunder mighty! How we hollered! Gab’rel

couldn’t heered his horn.