Oh, a positive man—a positive man,
So the people discovered, was Benjamin Brann.
With his household and neighbors and children
and hoss
Old Brann allowed he would always be boss.
And the most of the people they’d ruther kow-
tow
To his notions than live in the midst of a row.
And whenever you’d see in a faint-hearted
crowd,
A man who was hollerin’ ’specially loud,
You could calculate suttin that positive man
Was the uncontradicted old Benjamin Brann.
For after a while all the folks stood in awe
Of the roar of his voice and the build of his
jaw;
He was lookin’ for trouble and carried a chip
And chance for a tussle he never let slip;
He hated to think that the world could still go
When he stood at one side and kept hollerin’
“whoa!”
One day he was teamin’ his oxen to town;
He set on the cart tongue., his feet hangin’
down.
And bein’ a positive kind of a chap,
—Pokin’ out o’ his way for the sake of a
scrap—
Whenever he noticed a boulder or stump
He’d gee. and ride over the critter ker-bump!
But it happened one boulder that he came
across
Gave Benjamin’s ox-cart too lively a toss;
He was under the broad-tired wheels, s’r. before
He’d gathered his voice for his usual roar.
But just as the ox-cart rolled over him—oh,
You’d a-fallen down stunned at the way he
yelled “whoa!”
’Twas so loud and so threat’nin’ that Brindle
and Haw
Who bowed to that voice as their Gospel and
Law
Were so eager to stop that they backed, s’r,
and then
The wheel it rolled over the old man again.
There’s a moral to this as you notice, no doubt,
But I haven’t the patience to ravel it out.
I’ll say to reformers and dogmatists, though,
It’s safest to holler a moderate “whoa!”
They hastened to the funeral when Aunt Sa-
brina died.
Nephews, nieces, relatives—they came from
far and wide.
They hurried in by boat and train; they came
by stage and team,
In breasts a jealous bitter greed, in eyes a hun-
gry gleam.
I knew the most as decent men, their wives as
honest dames,
Who in the common run of things were careful
of their names.
And yet, alas, we sadly find that many who be-
have
As cooing doves in daily life are buzzards at
the grave.
So while the choir softly purred, and while the
parson prayed,
The lids of mourning eyes were raised and
sneaking glances strayed
From old-style clock to pantry shelf, from par-
lor set to rug,
And knitted brows weighed soberly how much
each heir could lug.
Anon the lustful glances crossed and scowl re-
plied to scowl,
And spoke as plain as though the look were
voiced in sullen growl:
Thus when the parson prayed, “Oh, Lord, take
Thou this way-worn soul,”
I caught a look that plainly spoke: “I’ll take
that china bowl.”
And this look said, “I speak for that,” and
that look spoke for this,
The while the parson droned of love and told
them of the bliss
That cometh after struggles here; “The peace
of rest,” he said,
And then each woman claimed through looks
her aunt’s goose-feather bed.
’Twas thus the kindred flocked to town when
Aunt Sabrina died,
Ostensibly to bury her, but really to divide.
No will was left,’twas catch as can; and each
and every heir,
Came in with desperate intent to scoop the big-
gest share.
They passed around with creaking shoes and
kissed the silent lip,
And pressed the limp, old, withered hand from
out whose jealous grip
The goods of earth had slipped away to heap a
funeral pyre,
A tinder pile where torch of Greed would start
a roaring fire.
They rode behind in solemn show and stood
around the grave,
Until the coffin sank from sight; and then each
jealous knave
Hopped back with great celerity in carriage and
in hack,
And folks who saw averred those heirs raced
horses going back.
This is no fairy tale, my friend! I’m giving
you the facts,
’Tis just an instance where the heirs came
round and brought an axe;
Where folks of pretty honest stripe could
hardly bear to wait
To decently inter the corpse ere carving the
estate;
—All ready at the prayer’s “Amen” to scratch
and haul and claw
With nails of jealous rancor and the talons of
the law.
My brother, I’ve a notion, that it is sinful pride
When we pose before the heathen as a highly
moral guide.
For here in old New England are some capers
that would—hush!—
This is strictly on the quiet—put a savage to
the blush.
You know that when a savage leaves his rela-
tives bereft,
There isn’t any scrapping over what the heathen
left.
They bury all his queer stone tools, his arrows
and his bow,
They stuff his pack with grub for snack; put
in his wampum “dough;”
They kill his horse and slay his dog and then
they sing a song,
And kill off all his weeping wives and send
them right along.
There’s no annoying probate court, no long,
litigious fuss,
No lawyer’s fees, no family row, no will-de-
stroying cuss.
The estate is executed in a brisk and thorough
style
And though some certain features suit all right
a heathen isle,
Some squeamish person might arise and prop-
erly complain
There’s too much execution for adoption here
in Maine.
So I’ll not commend the custom, yet I firmly
will abide
In the notion that we have no right to pose as
moral guide
To the heathen; for it’s evident, untutored
though they are,
The heirs at least show manners in Borrioboola
Gha.
Abbott B. Appleton went to the fair
(Sing hey! for the wind among his whiskers),
Saw curious “dewin’s” while he was down
there
‘Mongst the gamblers, the sports and the frisk-
ers.
He carried his bills in a wallet laid flat—
An old-fashioned calf-skin as black as your hat;
He was feeling so well he was easy to touch—
Then he hadn’t as much; no, there wasn’t as
much.
He noticed a crowd’round a pleasant-faced
man
Whose business seemed based on a curious plan;
He asked for a quarter from each in the crowd,
Put the coin in his hat, and he forthwith al-
lowed
That simply to advertise he would restore
His quarter to each, adding three quarters
more.
Now Abbott B. Appleton he did invest—
Anxious to share in these spoils with the rest.
Man asked for ten dollars, and Abbott, said he:
“Why, sartin! And then we’ll git thutty back
free.”
But the man who was running the charity
game
Informed him it didn’t work always the same,
And Abbott B. Appleton got for his ten
A smile—and the man didn’t play it again.
Then Abbott, in order to make himself square,
Got after the rest of the snides at the fair.
He hunted the pea, but he never could tell
When “the darned little critter” was under
the shell.
He shot at a peg with a big, swinging ball,
Five dollars a shot—didn’t hit it at all.
And he finally found himself “gone all to
smash,”
With wisdom, a lot—and two dollars in cash.
Abbott B. Appleton cursed at the fair
(Sing fie! for a man who’tended meetin’),
And he said to himself, “Gaul swat it, I swear
Them games is just rigged up for heatin’.
I thought they was honest down here in this
town;
I swow if I hadn’t I wouldn’t come down;
But if cheatin’s their caper I guess there’s idees
That folks up in Augerville have, if ye please.
I’m a pretty straight man when they use me all
square,
But I’m pirut myself at a Pirut-town fair.
I won’t pick their pockets to git back that
dough,
But I reckin’ I’ll giv’ ’em an Augerville show.”
Abbott B. Appleton “barked” at the fair
(Sing sakes! how the people they did gather),
And his cross-the-lot voice it did bellow and
blare
Till it seemed that his lungs were of leather.
He said that he had there inside of his pen
Most singular fowl ever heard of by men:
“The Giant Americanized Cock-a-too,”
With his feathers, some red and some white,
and some blue.
He promised if ever its like lived before
He’d give back their money right there at the
door.
Then he vowed that the sight of the age was
within.
“’Twill never,” he shouted. “be seen here agin..
’Tis an infant white annercononda, jest brought
From the African wilds, where it lately was
caught.
The only one ever heern tell of before,
All wild and untamed, that far foreign shore.”
Abbott B. Appleton raked in the tin.
(Sing chink! for the money that he salted.)
Then he opened the gates and he let ’em all in,
And then—well, then Abbott defaulted.
It was time that he did, for the people had
found
Just a scared Brahma hen squatting there on
the ground;
Her plumage was decked in a way to surprise,
With turkey-tail streamers all colored with
dyes;
And above, on a placard, this sign in plain
sight:
“There’s nothin’ else like her. I trimmed her
last night”
In a little cracked flask was an angle-worm
curled—
“Young annercononda, sole one in the
world.”
And another sign stated, “He’s small, I sup-
pose,
But if he hain’t big enough, wait till he grows.”
And Abbott B. Appleton, speeding afar,
Was counting his roll in a hurrying car,
Saying still, “As a general rule I’m all square,
But I’m pirut myself at a Pirut-town fair.”
There’s a letter on the bottom of the pile,
Its envelope a faded, sallow brown,
It has traveled to the city many a mile,
And the postmark names a’way up country
town.
But the hurried, worried broker pushes all the
others by,
And on the scrawly characters he turns a glis-
tening eye.
He forgets the cares of commerce and his anx-
ious schemes for gain,
The while he reads what mother writes from
up in Maine.
There are quirks and scratchy quavers of the
pen
Where it struggled in the fingers old and bent,
There are places where he has to read again
And think a bit to find what mother meant.
There are letters on his table that inclose some
bouncing checks;
There are letters giving promises of profits on
his “specs.”
But he tosses all the litter by, forgets the
golden rain,
Until he reads what mother writes from up in
Maine.
At last he finds “with love—we all are well,”
And softly lays the homely letter down,
Then dashes at his eager tasks pell-mell,
—Once more the busy, anxious man of town.
But whenever in his duties as the rushing mo-
ments fly
That faded little envelope smiles up to meet
his eye,
He turns again to labor with a stronger, truer
brain,
From thinking on what mother wrote from up
in Maine.
All through the day he dictates brisk replies,
To his amanuensis at his side,
—The curt and stern demands and business
lies,
—The doubting man cajoled, and threat de-
fied.
And then at dusk when all are gone he drops
his worldly mask
And takes his pen and lovingly performs a wel-
come task;
For never shall the clicking- type or shorthand
scrawl profane
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.
Without, the summer silence lies—
Within, the meeting-house is still;
The hush of First Day hovers o’er
All human-kind on Quaker Hill.
The tethered Dobbins doze and blink
In stolid calm beneath the shed;
In First Day, Quaker attitude,
With half-closed eyes and drooping head.
The cheeping birds, abashed and mute,
Have skittered off to search for shade.
Just one lone roysterer, a bee,
Embarrassed at the noise lie’s made,
Whirrs up against a staring pane
And folds his wings and sits him down,
To gaze with apiarian mirth
On strange drab poke and shining crown.
The elders sit in sober rows,
Upon the long, prim, facing-seats;
—Each visage like an iron mask;
No look of recognition greets
The softened landscape out of doors.
—The shimmer of the summer falls
On unresponsive eyes; The God
Of Nature all unheeded calls.
Their half-veiled gaze droops coldly down,
Fixed on the dusty, worn, old floor,
Unnoting that the gracious Lord
Smiles in God’s sunshine at the door.
The Spirit has not moved the tongue;
Each contrite soul has conned its own;
And in the hush of silent prayer,
Each worshipper has bent alone.
And some are sad and some are stern
And some are smug and others bow
As though, with furtive stealth, to hide
What conscience writes upon the brow.
But hark! the Meeting lifts its eyes
And he who’s sitting at the head
Breaks on the hush with reverent tone:
“If friends,” says he, “have planned to wed
’Tis meet that now they do proceed.”
Forthwith upon the women’s side
A blushing youth stands forth in view
And with him shrinks his Quaker bride.
With trembling hand in shaking palm,
They face the Meeting’s awful hush,
—No minister to question them,
No kindly shield to hide a blush.
Alone they stand, alone must they
Swear matrimony’s solemn oath;
A hundred noses point their way,
Two hundred eyes stare hard at both.
Then twice and thrice the youth’s parched lips
Strive hard to frame the longed-for word;
And twice and thrice he tries again,
Yet not a single sound is heard.
There’s just an upward flash of eyes
Like starlight in a forest pool,
—She may have said, “Take heart, dear
one!”
—She may have said, “Go on, thou fool!
His cheeks flush dark, his lips are gray,
His knees drum fast against the pew.
But by a mighty gasp he speaks,
The dry lips part, a croak comes through:
“Here in the presence of the Lord,
And in the First-Day meeting, I
Take thee, my friend, Susannah Saul
To be my wife. My loving eye
Shall rest on thee, and till the Lord
Is pleased by death to separate
Our lives and loves, I’ll be to thee
An honest, faithful, loving mate.”
As one an echo of a song
Thrums thinly on a single string,
The Quaker maid in trembling tones
Vows to her lord to likewise bring
Love, truth and trust to grace their home.
Their voices cease and side by side
They stand abashed. One honest voice
Rolls out, “Amen;” the knot is tied.
Petit Pierre of Attegat,
—Peter, the Little, round and fat,
Balanced himself on the edge of a chair
And gazed in the eyes of Father Claire.
Without on the porch, defiant sat
The prettiest maiden in Attegat.
And here was trouble; for Zelia Dionne
Had vowed to the Virgin she’d be a nun;
But Peter, who loved her more than life,
Was fully as bound she should be his wife.
Yet as often as Peter pressed to wed
The pretty Zelia tossed her head.
“I’m not for the wife of man,” she said.
“I’ve dreamed three times our Mary came
And pressed my brow and spoke my name.
I know she means for me to kneel
And take the vows at St. Basil.”
Though Peter stormed, yet Zelia clung
To her belief and braved his tongue.
“Je t’aime, mon cher,” she shyly said,
And drooped her eyes and bent her head;
“But when our Virgin Mother calls
A maiden to her convent walls,
How shameless she to disobey
And follow her own guilty way!”
“But dearest,” Peter warmly plead,
“’Twould not be guilty if it led
To our own home and our own love!
Our Holy Mother from Above,
Will pardon us—I know she will—”
And yet the maid responded still,
“I dare not, Peter, disobey,
And follow my own guilty way.”
So thus it chanced that Zelia Dionne
Had vowed herself to be a nun.
Though Peter teased for many a day
She pressed her lips and said him nay,
And when he begged that she at least
Would leave the question to the priest,
Although she grudged her faint consent
As meaning doubt, at last she went,
Overpersuaded by Peter’s prayer,
To take the case to Father Clair.
Peter, the Little, of Attegat
Fumbled with trembling hands his hat,
As breathlessly he tried to trace
The thoughts that crossed the father’s face.
“My son,” at length the priest returned,
—How Peter’s heart within him burned—
“If truly by the maid the Queen
Of Most High Heaven hath been seen,
—If only in her maiden dreams—
You must allow it ill beseems
My mouth to speak. It may be sin,
For—well, my son, bring Zelia in!”
She stood before him half abashed
Yet boldly, too;—her dark cheek dashed
With ruddy flame; for all her soul
Burned holily. For now her whole
Rich nature stirred. She was not awed
For had she not been called of God?
And little Peter sat and stared
And marvelled how he’d ever dared
To lift his eyes to such a maid,
Or strive to wreck the choice she’d made.
She told in simple terms the tale.
“And do you wish to take the veil?”
The father asked. “Think long, think twice
And never mourn the sacrifice.”
She quivered, but she said, “I’ve thought;
Our Mary wills it and I ought.”
“And can you gladly say farewell
To earth and love and friends; to dwell
With perfect peace nor ever sigh
For things behind?” She said, “I’ll try.”
But even as she spoke the word,
The old time love for Peter stirred;
And mingling with her quick regret,
There came a sob and Peter’s wet,
Sad eyes peered at her through a rain
Of honest tears. She tried in vain
To choke her grief, but Zelia Dionne
Forgot her vow to be a nun,
And crying, “Pierre, I love you best!”
She flung herself upon his breast.
A moment thus—and then in prayer
Both knelt before good Father Clair.
“My daughter, did that vision speak
That night when motherly and meek,
She pressed her hand upon thy brow?
No? Then, my child, she spoke just now;
And in the promptings of thy heart
Her word is clear. My child, thou art
Blest in this choice, for that caress
Upon thy brow was but to bless
And not to call thee from thy choice.
Depart in peace, wed and rejoice.”
Peter, the Little, of Attegat,
Clapped on his curls, his fuzzy hat,
And clasping the hand of his promised bride
He trudged back home with one at his side,
—No longer the self-vowed, mournful nun,
But laughing, black-eyed Zelia Dionne.