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.

.....