The Old Soldier's Story: Poems and Prose Sketches
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Riley James Whitcomb. The Old Soldier's Story: Poems and Prose Sketches
THE OLD SOLDIER'S STORY
SOMEP'N COMMON-LIKE
MONSIEUR LE SECRETAIRE
A PHANTOM
IN THE CORRIDOR
LOUELLA WAINIE
THE TEXT
WILLIAM BROWN
WHY
THE TOUCH OF LOVING HANDS
A TEST
A SONG FOR CHRISTMAS
SUN AND RAIN
WITH HER FACE
MY NIGHT
THE HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN
GOOD-BY, OLD YEAR
FALSE AND TRUE
A BALLAD FROM APRIL
BRUDDER SIMS
DEFORMED
FAITH
THE LOST THRILL
AT DUSK
ANOTHER RIDE FROM GHENT TO AIX
IN THE HEART OF JUNE
DREAMS
BECAUSE
TO THE CRICKET
THE OLD-FASHIONED BIBLE
UNCOMFORTED
WHAT THEY SAID
AFTER THE FROST
CHARLES H. PHILLIPS
WHEN IT RAINS
AN ASSASSIN
BEST OF ALL
BIN A-FISHIN'
UNCLE DAN'L IN TOWN OVER SUNDAY
SOLDIERS HERE TO-DAY
SHADOW AND SHINE
THAT NIGHT
AUGUST
THE GUIDE
SUTTER'S CLAIM
HER LIGHT GUITAR
WHILE CIGARETTES TO ASHES TURN
TWO SONNETS TO THE JUNE-BUG
AUTOGRAPHIC
AN IMPROMPTU ON ROLLER SKATES
WRITTEN IN BUNNER'S "AIRS FROM ARCADY"
IN THE AFTERNOON
AT MADAME MANICURE'S
A CALLER FROM BOONE
LORD BACON
MY FIRST WOMERN
AS WE READ BURNS
TO JAMES NEWTON MATTHEWS
SONG
WHEN WE THREE MEET
JOSH BILLINGS
WHICH ANE
THE EARTHQUAKE
A FALL-CRICK VIEW OF THE EARTHQUAKE
LEWIS D. HAYES
IN DAYS TO COME
LUTHER A. TODD
WHEN THE HEARSE COMES BACK
OUR OLD FRIEND NEVERFAIL
DAN O'SULLIVAN
JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY
MEREDITH NICHOLSON
GOD'S MERCY
CHRISTMAS GREETING
TO RUDYARD KIPLING
THE GUDEWIFE
TENNYSON
ROSAMOND C. BAILEY
MRS. BENJAMIN HARRISON
GEORGE A. CARR
TO ELIZABETH
TO ALMON KEEFER
TO – "THE J. W. R. LITERARY CLUB"
LITTLE MAID-O'-DREAMS
TO THE BOY WITH A COUNTRY
CLAUDE MATTHEWS
TO LESLEY
THE JUDKINS PAPERS
FATHER AND SON
MR. JUDKINS' REMARKS
JUDKINS' BOY ON THE MUD-TURTLE
ON FROGS
ON PIRUTS
ON HACKMENS
ON DUDES
ON RED HAIR
THE CROSS-EYED GIRL
HOMESICKNESS
TO THE QUIET OBSERVER
AMERICA'S THANKSGIVING
WILLIAM PINKNEY FISHBACK
JOHN CLARK RIDPATH
NEW YEAR'S NURSERY JINGLE
TO THE MOTHER
TO MY SISTER
A MOTTO
TO A POET ON HIS MARRIAGE
ART AND POETRY
HER SMILE OF CHEER AND VOICE OF SONG
OLD INDIANY
ABE MARTIN
O. HENRY
"MONA MACHREE"
WILLIAM McKINLEY
BENJAMIN HARRISON
LEE O. HARRIS
THE HIGHEST GOOD
MY CONSCIENCE
MY BOY
THE OBJECT LESSON
Отрывок из книги
There has always been an inclination, or desire, rather, on my part to believe in the mystic – even as far back as stretches the gum-elastic remembrance of my first "taffy-pullin'" given in honor of my fifth birthday; and the ghost-stories, served by way of ghastly dessert, by our hired girl. In fancy I again live over all the scenes of that eventful night: —
The dingy kitchen, with its haunting odors of a thousand feasts and wash-days; the old bench-legged stove, with its happy family of skillets, stewpans and round-bellied kettles crooning and blubbering about it. And how we children clustered round the genial hearth, with the warm smiles dying from our faces just as the embers dimmed and died out in the open grate, as with bated breath we listened to how some one's grandmother had said that her first man went through a graveyard once, one stormy night, "jest to show the neighbors that he wasn't afeard o' nothin'," and how when he was just passing the grave of his first wife "something kind o' big and white-like, with great big eyes like fire, raised up from behind the headboard, and kind o' re'ched out for him"; and how he turned and fled, "with that air white thing after him as tight as it could jump, and a hollerin' 'wough-yough-yough!' till you could hear it furder'n you could a bullgine," and how, at last, just as the brave and daring intruder was clearing two graves and the fence at one despairing leap, the "white thing," had made a grab at him with its iron claws, and had nicked him so close his second wife was occasioned the onerous duty of affixing another patch in his pantaloons. And in conclusion, our hired girl went on to state that this blood-curdling incident had so wrought upon the feelings of "the man that wasn't afeard o' nothin'," and had given him such a distaste for that particular graveyard, that he never visited it again, and even entered a clause in his will to the effect that he would ever remain an unhappy corpse should his remains be interred in said graveyard.
.....
And then she began to grow shorter and thicker, and fatter and squattier.
"And how do I suit you now?" she wheezed at length, when she had wilted down to about the size of a large loaf of bread.
.....