Holman Day

“ Of men whose hands are blistered by the
scythe-snaths and the plows,
—For men who wrestle Nature with their bare
and corded arms
In an everlasting struggle with these grudging
old Maine farms,
Who lay their lives and hopes and joys’neath
labor’s bitter rule
To coax from sullen Earth the price that keeps
their boys in school.
In manhood of America—’mongst brawn and
pluck and brain,
Set high these humble heroes of the upland
farms of Maine! ”

“ The message to the dear old home up there in
Maine.
The penmanship is rounded, schoolboy style,
For mother’s eyes are getting dim, she wrote;
And as he sits and writes there, all the while
A bit of homesick feeling grips his throat.
For all the city friendships here with Tom and
Dick and Jim
And all the ties of later years grow very, very
dim;
While boyhood’s loves in manhood’s heart rise
deep and pure and plain.
Called forth by mother’s homely words from
up in Maine. ”

“ THE SUN-BROWNED DADS OF MAINE Here’s ho for the masterful men o’ Maine,
—Grit and gumption, brawn and brain!
South they go and West they flow,
The men that do and the men that know.
And Fame and Honor, Power and Gain
Come to the call of the men o’ Maine.
But away up back on the rock-piled farms
Are the gnarled old dads with corded arms,
The dads that give these boys o’ Maine
Health and strength and grit and brain. ”

“ Maine lumber camps maintain.
Or a pair o’ fuzzy trowsers that was picked
before they’s ripe.
They fit ye like your body had a dreadful
lookin’ twist;
There is shirts that’s red and yaller and with
plaids as big’s your fist;
There are larrigans and shoe-packs for all
makes and shapes of men,
As yaller as the standers of a Cochin China
hen,
The goods is rather shop-worn and purraps a
leetle damp,
—But you take ’em or you leave ’em—either
suits the wangan camp.
The wangan camp!
The wangan camp!
There is never any mark-downs at the
wangan camp. ”

“ The pure and worthy motives of the liar here
in Maine.
His strongest hold is fishing, and he fixes with
his eye
The victim who must listen and who never
dares deny.
Each river and pellucid pond, each brooklet and
each stream,
Possesses fifty liars to preserve it in esteem.
And he that owns a yaller dog, and he that
owns a hoss
Will never see their laurels dimmed, if words
can add a gloss.
’Tis true the old inhabitant, narrating ancient
tales,
Occasionally soars to heights where homely
language fails. ”

“ But there’s savor in wreaths from the brier and
cob,
In the depths of the forest afar from the mob;
And an incense that’s sweet to ecstatic degree
Curls up from the bowl of the ancient T. D.
While choicest Perfectos smell ranker than
punk
In the shade of the hemlocks of Sourdnahunk.
Ah, here do the tables most wondrously turn!
The city olfactories sniff if you burn
Aught else than the finest Havana in rolls;
Folks turn up their noses at cut-plug in bowls ”

“ But’tis only the craven that flees to the shore,
For the fisher must work and must wait—
Must wait for the storm that shall carry him
down,
Must work with his dory and trawl;
There are women and babies in Gloucester town
Who are hungry. ”

“ And sling in the bags and crowd up to the
heat,
The gang round the stove they don’t give ye
no praise
But set there and toast themselves’side of the
blaze;
And ev’ry old, wobble-shanked son of a gun
Sets up there and tells ye how he would have
done!
—If there’s any one job gives your temper an
aidge,
It’s drivin’ the stage,
—It’s drivin’ the stage. ”

“ I’ve never hankered no great on earth for
more’n my food and roof,
And all of the meat that I’ve had to eat was
cut near horn or hoof;
But I thank Thee, Lord, that I’ve earnt my
way and I hain’t got ‘on the town,’
And when I die I know that I shall sartin wear
a crown.”
Whenever he mumbled his simple prayer in
the kitchen by his chair,
Aunt Rich would rattle the supper pans and
sniff with a scornful air.
She’d never “professed,” as the saying is, she
never had felt a “call,”
And she constantly prodded Elias with,
“’Tain’t prayer that counts, it’s sprawl.” ”

“ For folks have got to living on the gauge of
three big rings.
But while the whirl is going on, it seems, my
friend, to me
That half of what goes past your nose is things
that you don’t see.
And when the angel cries, “All done,” and
when the lights go out,
You’ll jostle to the dark Beyond amidst a diz-
zied rout.
And life that’s lived at three ring pace I fear
will only seem
A useless sort of patchwork thing—a mixed-
up fruitless dream.
Why wasn’t “father’s way” the best? ”

“ Death we clinch and Time we fight, for be-
hind us gasps the Drouth.
Twenty a month, bateau for a home, and only
a peep at town,
For our money is gone in a brace of nights
after the drive is down;
But with peavies and poles and care-free souls
our ragged and roofless crew
Swarms gayly along with whoop and song
when the Allegash drive does through.
THE KNIGHT OF THE SPIKE-SOLE BOOTS They had told me to’ware of the “Hulling
Machine,”
But a tenderfoot is a fool!
Though the man that’s new to a birch canoe
Believes that he knows, as a rule. ”

“ A SETTIN’ HEN
BALLAD OF DEACON PEASLEE
THE WORST TEACHER
THE TUCKVILLE GRAND BALL
THE ONE-RING SHOW
THE SWITCH FOR HIRAM BROWN
THE JUMPER
ISHMAEL’S BREED
FOREWORD
|THESE are plain tales of picturesque character-phases in Maine Yankeedom from the Allegash to the ocean. These are the men whose hands are blistered by plow-handle and ax, or whose calloused palms are gouged by the trawls. Their heads are as hard as the stones piled around their acres. Their wit is as keen as the bush-scythes with which they trim their rough pastures. ”

“ We love the lies they tell to us and love the
liars too.
They hold to truth in business deals, they’d
never lie to cheat;
But when the “sport” comes down from town,
by gracious he’s their meat.
They “torch” him up with narrative until his
fancy steams
And swogons, yaps, and witherlicks go ramp-
ing through his dreams.
For when our solemn ruminants describe the
olden times
They stimulate a state of mind I can’t describe
in rhymes.
I pen this humble lyric and I bring a wreath of
bay,
For the good prevaricators doing business down
this way. ”

“ Though Death trails above them, where’er they
are steered,
We’ll work for the babies at home.
The Banks will claim their toll,
And Fate makes up the roll
Of those with the humble epitaph: “Went
dozen with every soul.”
And it’s woe to that fated crew
Who behold them passing through—
Who gaze on the ghosts of the Gloucester fleets
on the Night of the White Review.
THE BALLAD OF ORASMUS NUTE There once was a Quaker, Orasmus Nute,
With a physog as stiff as a cowhide boot,
And he skippered a ship from Georgetown, Maine,
In the’way-back days of the pirates’ reign. ”

“ An’ sank with coils a-flashin’ in the light from
old Cape Ann,
An’ we—we towed with dories till we got to
Gloucester shore—
An’ you’ll never get a Banksman on the Mary
any more.
No—no—no!
Not a man will go,
For her towage fee hain’t settled till the Wah-
hooh-wow takes four.
She’s ashore in Gloucester harbor with a
weary, leary list,
An’ the mud is creepin’, creepin’ to her rail;
She’s sound in ev’ry timber—is the Mary of
the Mist,
But the broom is at her mast-head as a sign
that she’s for sale. ”

“ May the plug from which they nibble spice a
piquant, pungent tale,
May words to paint the details of their fiction
never fail.
Let the chips from which they whittle always
have an even grain,
And we’ll challenge all creation with our liars
here in Maine.
THE BALLAD OF DOC PLUFF Doctor Pluff, who lived in Cornville, he was
hearty, brisk and bluff,
Didn’t have much extry knowledge, but in
some ways knowed enough;
Knowed enough to doctor hosses, cows an’ dogs
an’ hens an’ sheep,
When he come to doctor humans, wal, he wasn’t
quite so deep. ”

“ Sowin’ the bait from the trawl-heaped tubs, I
pull at my old T. D.
An’ I dream of a pearl of a Glo’ster girl, who’s
waitin’ at home for me;
Statin’ she’s waitin’ is not to say she’s prom-
ised as yet her hand,
For she’s wild as my dory—she keeps me in
worry;—they’re hard to understand.
—They’re hard to understand,
But I’ve got the question planned,
Please God, I’ll know if it’s weal or woe as
soon as I get to land.
For a man who can catch the swing,
Of a dory—mischievous thing—
Has certainly grit to capture a chit of a maid
about to spring. ”

“ To Rome and Paris to train that bass,
A widow and three old maids in the place,
Who were living along, no man knew why,
Decided they’d hurry up and die.
They just stopped breathing and died from
choice
For the sake of having that funeral voice
Draw copious streams from the mourner’s eyes
And give them a send-off toward Paradise.
—No man who’s monkeyed with bass B-flat
Got ever a compliment higher’n that.
He sung at all the paring bees, the quilting teas,
the parti-ees,
He sung at all the shindigees for twenty miles
around. ”

“ That plummet, there, has brought us up a hand-
ful of the loam
From the Widder Abbott’s garden on the Neck
ro’d, back at home.
A tidal wave has lifted us—the Hanks has run
away!
—It has tossed’er over Glo’ster,
And we sartin sure have lost’er,
’Less ye pray, ye sin-struck critters,’less ye
pray, pray, pray!”
Each clung to rope and stanchion, each hung to
stay and brace,
Each prayed up at the heavens while the spin-
drift lashed his face;
We prayed and prayed till mornin’
Till the early, yaller dawnin’
Lit up the sea around us, and it also lit our
case ”

“ We never lost our bearin’s, for old Jason always
knew.
We would take some mutton taller and we’d
fill the hollowed head
Of the plummet, smooth and even, then a man
would throw the lead.
And we’d pass her back to Jason and he’d turn
the plummet up,
Taste the scrimp of soil that stuck there on the
taller in the cup,
And he’d tell us where we headed, though the
night be black’s a coal,
For he knew the taste of bottoms from the Cow
to Quero Shoal. ”

“ You rose splashing full of cider up the dark old
cellar stairs.
OUR GOOD PREVARICATORS
OUR LIARS HERE IN MAINE There was Sinon, he of Troy, and Ulysses, too,
and Cain,
Who preceded many centuries the liars here in
Maine.
There was Gulliver, Munchausen, there was
Ananias, too,
A very handsome job of it those gentlemen
could do.
Yet look at Ananias! Why, his story knocked
him dead,
But here in Maine the liar “does” the other
man instead.
And Sinon, he of Troy, had to plan and build
his lie,
But here in Maine the liar doesn’t even have
to try. ”

“ The air was full of slivers as the spikers chewed
the floor,
And the man whose feet were punctured didn’t
battle any more.
“Now, fellers, boom the outfit,” shouted Fin-
negan, the boss,
His choppers formed a cordon and they swept
the room across;
The people who were standing at the walls in
double ranks,
Were pulled and thrown to center at the order,
“Clear the banks!”
Then they herded Rapo-genus in the middle of
the room,
And slung themselves around it like a human
pocket-boom. ”

“ I guess them ’ere critters have got all they can.
For they’ve sued off the stock till the barns
are all bare,
’Cept the old turkey-gobbler, a-peckin’ out
there;
They’d’a’ lifted him, too, for those lawyers are
rough,
But they reckoned that gobbler was rather too
tough.
So they’ve left us our dinner for Thanksgivin’
Day;
Just remember that, mummy, to-night when
you pray.
Now chirk up your appetite, for, with God’s
grace,
We’ll eat all at once all the stock on the place. ”

“ And dad lights up his old crook pipe and says,
“Now how’ve ye be’n?
Set down and tell us how ye’ve fared and tell
us how ye’ve done,
You’ve sent us letters right along, but them
don’t talk it, son.
A minit with ye, face to face, beats hours with
a pen;
God bless ye, bub! Ye’re welcome back! Now
tell us how’ve ye be’n?”
Ah, happy he who brings success
Back here to Maine to cheer and bless
The folks who ask in tenderness,
—Taking you into their arms again,
“God bless ye, dearie, how’ve ye be’n?” ”

“ Down to our house we wear patches, but it
ain’t nobody’s biz
Jest as long as them ‘ere critters git the best of
hay there is.
When the cobwebs on the rafters drip with
winter’s early dusk
And the rows of critters’ noses, damp with
breath as sweet as musk,
Toss and tease me from the tie-up—ain’t a job
that suits me more
Than the feedin’ of the cattle—that’s the reg’-
lar wind-up chore.
When I grain ’em or I meal ’em—wal, there’s
plenty in the bin,
And I give ’em quaker measure ev’ry time I
dip down in ”