Eugene CarmanRhodes’ slave! Selling shoes and gingham,Flour and bacon, overalls, clothing, all day longFor fourteen hours a day for three hundred and thirteen daysFor more than twenty years.Saying “Yes’m” and “Yes, sir”, and “Thank you”A thousand times a day, and all for fifty dollars a month.Living in this stinking room in the rattle-trap “Commercial.”And compelled to go to Sunday School, and to listenTo the Rev. Abner Peet one hundred and four times a yearFor more than an hour at a time,Because Thomas Rhodes ran the churchAs well as the store and the bank.So while I was tying my neck-tie that morningI suddenly saw myself in the glass:My hair all gray, my face like a sodden pie.So I cursed and cursed: You damned old thingYou cowardly dog! You rotten pauper!You Rhodes’ slave! Till Roger BaughmanThought I was having a fight with some one,And looked through the transom just in timeTo see me fall on the floor in a heapFrom a broken vein in my head.
Rhodes’ slave! Selling shoes and gingham,Flour and bacon, overalls, clothing, all day longFor fourteen hours a day for three hundred and thirteen daysFor more than twenty years.Saying “Yes’m” and “Yes, sir”, and “Thank you”A thousand times a day, and all for fifty dollars a month.Living in this stinking room in the rattle-trap “Commercial.”And compelled to go to Sunday School, and to listenTo the Rev. Abner Peet one hundred and four times a yearFor more than an hour at a time,Because Thomas Rhodes ran the churchAs well as the store and the bank.So while I was tying my neck-tie that morningI suddenly saw myself in the glass:My hair all gray, my face like a sodden pie.So I cursed and cursed: You damned old thingYou cowardly dog! You rotten pauper!You Rhodes’ slave! Till Roger BaughmanThought I was having a fight with some one,And looked through the transom just in timeTo see me fall on the floor in a heapFrom a broken vein in my head.