Searcy FooteI wanted to go away to collegeBut rich Aunt Persis wouldn’t help me.So I made gardens and raked the lawnsAnd bought John Alden’s books with my earningsAnd toiled for the very means of life.I wanted to marry Delia Prickett,But how could I do it with what I earned?And there was Aunt Persis more than seventyWho sat in a wheel-chair half aliveWith her throat so paralyzed, when she swallowedThe soup ran out of her mouth like a duck—A gourmand yet, investing her incomeIn mortgages, fretting all the timeAbout her notes and rents and papers.That day I was sawing wood for her,And reading Proudhon in between.I went in the house for a drink of water,And there she sat asleep in her chair,And Proudhon lying on the table,And a bottle of chloroform on the book,She used sometimes for an aching tooth!I poured the chloroform on a handkerchiefAnd held it to her nose till she died.—Oh Delia, Delia, you and ProudhonSteadied my hand, and the coronerSaid she died of heart failure.I married Delia and got the money—A joke on you, Spoon River?
I wanted to go away to collegeBut rich Aunt Persis wouldn’t help me.So I made gardens and raked the lawnsAnd bought John Alden’s books with my earningsAnd toiled for the very means of life.I wanted to marry Delia Prickett,But how could I do it with what I earned?And there was Aunt Persis more than seventyWho sat in a wheel-chair half aliveWith her throat so paralyzed, when she swallowedThe soup ran out of her mouth like a duck—A gourmand yet, investing her incomeIn mortgages, fretting all the timeAbout her notes and rents and papers.That day I was sawing wood for her,And reading Proudhon in between.I went in the house for a drink of water,And there she sat asleep in her chair,And Proudhon lying on the table,And a bottle of chloroform on the book,She used sometimes for an aching tooth!I poured the chloroform on a handkerchiefAnd held it to her nose till she died.—Oh Delia, Delia, you and ProudhonSteadied my hand, and the coronerSaid she died of heart failure.I married Delia and got the money—A joke on you, Spoon River?